Today is perfect. The humidity is gone, and it is only 71˚. The window behind me, Nala’s favorite, had to be closed. It felt cold on my back. It seems strange to say that, cold on my back, after all the hot days we’ve had. It rained last night for ten minutes or so. It was quiet, no thunder, no lightning, just a little rain.

Yesterday I went to the dump. I hadn’t intent to go, but I was driving nearby and decided why not. It did feel good to have an empty trunk at least for the meantime.

Nala and I sleep behind a barricade meant to keep Nala inside the room. Henry doesn’t join us until later, after the lights are out. I let him inside when Nala wakes me up with her crying because Henry is in the hall also crying. This morning both of them had breached the barrier. I could hear them barking from the hall at some perceived trespass. I figured I’d best get downstairs and check the dining room for Nala’s mark. The room was dry. Maybe I can get rid of the barricade.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t much afraid of anything. Bugs and snakes were no never mind, and I couldn’t fathom why some girl were silly screamers when they saw bugs or snakes. Why scream? I couldn’t guess. Had they been bitten by a snake? Hardly. The only ones I ever saw were garter snakes, innocent garter snakes who hung around the grass and flowers. As for spiders, other then The Fly of movie fame, I knew we were safe from being caught in their beautifully woven webs. I did ask why the screams. Fear was always the answer.

When I got older, I understood being afraid of things we could see like bugs and snakes. I am part of the duck and cover generation. I was learning to protect myself from the big B Bomb by making myself as small a target as I could under my desk. I really wished for a spider’s web I could marvel at or a garter snake slithering across my hands and arms, things I could touch and see, not some threat from the sky I really didn’t understand, a threat which made me afraid, made me crouch under my desk.

The AC went on first thing this morning. Despite the open windows, the house felt stuffy. Both dogs came inside with their tongues hanging then decided to chase each other back and forth in the hall with a stop on the couch to chew on each other’s muzzles. They drove me crazy. Henry is now barking at something he heard outside. I’m ignoring him. I know his bark language. He probably heard a car.

Today will be in the 80’s and cloudy and hot the whole day. Thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow, but I’m skeptical. Rain seems always to make an end run around us. Everything is dry.

I enjoy being home in the cool air and don’t push myself to go out despite a car already filled with trash and two bags of cat litter still needing to be loaded into the stuffed trunk. It reminds me of a clown car at the circus which miraculously unloads clown after clown after clown. I’ll remove the bags with a flourish.

I keep thinking I can go to the dump early tomorrow after coffee and the papers instead of today. It just seems too hot today to be hauling trash. I could stay home and vacuum a bit and maybe even dust. I do have to put on a new toilet seat. The other one broke this morning, and I just happened to have a spare toilet seat in the cellar.

When I went to Morocco, I had lunch in a village near the mountains. I needed to use the bathroom so I was directed to the small building outside. It was a bathroom with a hole. In Ghana, many bathrooms were just holes. They were easy to use as I wore dresses all the time because women didn’t wear pants back then. The best technique was just the simple squat. This time though I was wearing long pants. I had to figure a new technique on the fly. I decided to rely on my experiences and squat. It was a little complicated in long pants, but I successfully managed all three: the hole, the pants, and the pee. Later, on one of my trips to Ghana, at a gas station stop, the bathrooms were outside. I went to the ladies and found a hole. I was wearing long pants, now culturally acceptable, and I had experience with long pants and a hole so I was unperturbed. I just squatted.