The morning is lovely. Out my den window I can see a brilliant sun, a brighter sun than we’ve seen, and a cloudless blue sky. What I can’t see is the cold. It is only 36°. I gasped a little when I went to get the papers.

When I was a kid, winter was fun. Snow was fun. I never really noticed how cold it was even when my lips turned blue. I hated wearing a hat, but I didn’t mind mittens. My mother made me layer. On the first warmish day I’d beg to wear lighter clothes. That never worked. She always made me layer anyway.

I had a bit of a scare this morning, thanks to Miss Nala, not a surprise I suspect. I hadn’t seen Nala in a while. She wasn’t on the couch, her usual morning nap spot, so I went outside to check the yard. No Nala lying in the sun. That scared me even though I knew she couldn’t escape the yard. I called and called. My voice got panicky. I came inside to check upstairs. Right away I noticed the gate across Jack’s door was leaning in the doorway. Nala was inside the room. She got in, but she couldn’t get out. Nabbed! She had eaten Jack’s food, licked the empty cans clean and left a trash mess for me.

The dogs are conspiring against me. I found both sets of name plates and town licenses on the floor the same day. Coincidence? I think not.

My father used to love the dump. My friends would come down for the weekend, and he’d take them there as if it were part of a tour of Cape Cod. My father pointed out the highlights like the seagulls circling the high piles of trash and other gulls at the top of the trash mountains picking out morsels. The dump was noisy back then. Gulls cried and squealed from overhead. It was a spectacle. My father would hate the dump now with its recycle bins and trash bins. There are no seagulls.

Today is my dump day.