We still have clouds, and we still have temperatures in the 30’s. This is only February. The winter with its cold, snowy days still stretches in front of us, but winter is losing its grip. The 40’s feel temperate. Since the winter solstice, we have gained sunlight. The sun hangs around three minutes more a day this month.

My grandmother was always old to me. She wore flowered dresses and clunky shoes. She never once wore a pair of pants. She pulled her wire basket behind her to the First National. It was just up the street from where she lived. My grandparents had what was then a traditional marriage. She was in charge of the house, of cleaning and cooking and washing and such. My grandfather handled the money, the shoveling, the driving. They lived in the same town we did, but we seldom saw them. Only my father visited, mostly on Saturdays. Years later, my grandmother lived in what my father called wrinkle city, apartments for the elderly. Once in a while, he’d coerce me to go with him. I did.

I remember how disappointed my father was when he realized the eggs on the table for breakfast were hard boiled. We, my parents, my sister and I, were in the Netherlands at a small hotel right beside a river dike and were having breakfast. My father wanted fried eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. Instead, he got hard boiled eggs, fresh bread, different cheeses and deli meats. He kept complaining that this was not breakfast food. It was lunch. He made do but was not happy. That happened many times as we traveled through Europe. Finally, in London, we had breakfast, my father’s definition of breakfast. We had fried eggs, thick slices of back bacon and toast. I passed on the baked beans. My father was in his element.

In Ghana, for the Ghanaians, breakfast was no different than the other two meals. In my town it was t-zed, tuo and zaafi, and soup. The t-zed was made with millet flour. It was a glob. You pulled off a piece and dipped it in the soup. You ate with your right hand. I sometimes had it for supper, never breakfast. In the morning, I had coffee, fried eggs and toast. The eggs were fried in groundnut (peanut) oil. They were the best tasting eggs. In the Peace Corps hostel in Accra, for breakfast, cereal was offered first then the eggs and bacon. I have a weird memory of eating there. I remember the dishes were red or green or a gold yellow. They were unbreakable, sort of a combination of rubber and plastic. They had scratch marks from the cutlery. They were served already plated.

The reason breakfast came to mind today was I was hungry and have no eggs. I heated chili soup instead. I ate it with Saltines. My father would have been horrified.

Today is cloudy and cold. I should know not to expect anything different. It is winter, seemingly an endless winter. After the dogs go out, I stand at the back door watching for them. I can feel the cold coming through the dog door. I’d shut the back door, but Nala would ring the poochie bells over and over for me to open the door. She’d do that until I left the door open. I give in to her so I don’t have to keep jumping up and down. She knows that.

When I was a kid, Italian and Chinese were, to us, ethnic foods, a little exotic. We ordered Chinese from The China Moon or as we always called it The Moon. We didn’t eat there. My father ordered take-out. We usually had fried rice, maybe a beef dish and a couple of appetizers. My parents sometimes ordered a lobster dish. It wasn’t offered to us. My father said it wasn’t for kids as if that were a rule. We believed him. We had Italian food at Kitty’s. It is in the next town over from where I grew up. It was always filled with diners and was loud. The waitresses, many of whom were older, could carry trays lined up on their arms. I was awed. I remember we sometimes went there during my father’s vacations, the ones when we stayed home and did stuff every day. It was a treat to go out to eat. I never ordered spaghetti. We had spaghetti at home. I ordered chicken or sausage parm or cacciatore. The waitress always delivered the freshest Italian bread for the table. I loved to sop up the sauce.

Kitty’s is still there, but it has been years since I last ate there. When I did, it looked and sounded exactly the same. Even the parking lot was filled. I didn’t order spaghetti, in keeping with tradition, but I ordered some sort of pasta. When I was an adult, we often ordered take out from the Moon, but we also ate in the restaurant. They had a great buffet one day a week. When I visited my mother, it was where I wanted to have lunch especially on buffet day.

The China Moon was around almost longer than I had been alive. We expected it to be there. I remember it was where we ate before the prom or before a big dance or event. It had been owned by the same family since 1953. The Moon closed in 2020. The land was sold, another piece of my home town gone. It now lives only in my memory drawers.

Yesterday I didn’t post because I had an early concert, the start of another uke week. I have practice and my lesson and three more concerts. We’re playing Motown.

I wish I could stay home cozy and warm, but I’m out of the usual, cream for my coffee and bread. Almost anything else I could do without but not my coffee.