Last night it rained. The rain was loud and heavy for a while. Surprisingly, both dogs went out before bed. They didn’t mind the wet. The rain just started again. I saw it against the den window. It will rain on and off all day.

I had a late start this morning. I slept in for the first time in a while. The dogs stayed with me. I woke up first. Nala was reluctant to get off the bed. Henry got up and waited on the stairs for me. I love that he does that. They both went out, came in for treats and then got comfortable for their morning naps. My father used to say he wanted to come back as a pet in any of our houses.

Sundays in Ghana were different than any other day of the week. The cafeteria was reconfigured so that the benches became pews for a morning service. My students wore their three piece traditional dresses. Each of the four classes had their own prints. Religious figures from town sat in chairs at tables in front of the students. Hymns were sung and there was one sermon. The speakers alternated from among the town’s religious leaders: the white father, the minister from one of the churches or the imam from the mosque. One Sunday I got stuck. It was about the scariest thing I did in Ghana. My inspiration wasn’t the Bible. It was Aesop. I talked about the grasshoppers and the ants and the boy who cried wolf. I still remember the look on my principal’s face. She never asked me again.

After the service, the older students were allowed to go to town. Photographers came to the school grounds and took pictures. My students changed from their uniforms to their best dresses. Every Sunday was a sort of celebration.

If I could, I would travel back in time to my favorite Sunday dinner, roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes and peas. It was the meal my mother cooked for me before I left for Ghana. I left on a Sunday. I remember the ride to Logan. We didn’t talk much. They walked with me to the gate. We waited together until the gate was open, and I could board. We hugged. I told them I’d call to let them know I had arrived in Philadelphia, our staging area. When I looked back before I went into the jet way, my mother waved. I think we both cried.

I am going to the dump today.

Saturday is special in itself. When I was a kid, it was the day to do whatever I wanted. It always started the same with Saturday morning TV and a bowl of Rice Krispies. I sat on the floor to eat and sat close enough to the TV to risk blindness.

I had Saturday choices of what to do usually dictated by the weather. In the winter, I could ice skate either on the swamp or the rink the town built in Recreation Park. The rink had a small building with a wood stove and benches where you sat and put on and took off your skates. Under the benches were all the shoes. Uptown, the movie matinee was in the early afternoon, a cartoon and a movie for a quarter and candy for a nickel. I bought chewy, long lasting candy like Sugar Babies or Jujubes. During the rest of the year I often rode my bike. The route was wherever my bike took me. In the summer, I’d hunt grasshoppers in the field below my house or catch frogs from the swamp. Sometimes I went to the library. I’d pick as many books as I was allowed. I’d put them in my bike basket. Often, when I went over bumps, some books would go airborne and fall out of the basket. On the worst weather days, I’d stay home nestled in my bed and read.

Today is cloudy. It is 55°. Rain is predicted. The house is quiet. The dogs are napping. Nala is stretched out on the couch. Henry is on my bed upstairs. Jack, the cat, is in his room asleep on a pillow. I’m on the couch with my feet up on the table. I’m on my second cup of coffee. I’m going to make toast. I just bought fig jam.

I wondered about toast. Who decided to toast bread and why it is mostly a breakfast food? My only guess was maybe bread got stale and toasting it saved it. Over time I’ve had toasters, the kind where the bread goes down and pops up when it is done. I remember bread getting stuck on the coils and using a knife to get out the bread. I didn’t unplug it. The toasters were chrome. They always sat on the counter. One of my Christmas gifts was a toaster oven. It was multi-functional. I could toast bread and cook food like pizza slices. I still have a toaster oven, my third.

Today I have a concert at Margaritaville, a hotel in Hyannis. It is their Jimmy Buffett convention. I’ve got my Hawaiian shirt and my Hawaiian uke. We’re playing not only Buffett songs but also summer songs. I have to organize the songs and tune my uke.

Earlier this morning it rained. When I went to get the paper, I could smell the flowers and the wet soil. It is a spring smell, the smell of growing things. The rain will return this afternoon, a light rain. It will be in the low 50’s all day.

When I was in Ghana, I learned not to mind the bugs. They’d fly onto my food or land in my glass. I’d just pick them out. I’d sift my flour as the bugs loved flour. I wouldn’t get all of them, but I figured the rest were protein. Lately I’ve been the victim of another plague, gnats. It started in Jack’s wet food. The gnats multiplied. They attacked. They reminded me of World War II movies when swarms of planes attacked carriers. I vacuumed them. I swatted them. I grabbed them in mid-air. I killed the ones on the back door glass. They left streaks. My sister suggested I get one of those fly strips. I remembered them from my childhood. One used to hang over the lobster tank at the fish store. It was covered in dead flies stuck to the strips. It was gross but mesmerizing in an odd way. I looked up how to kill gnats. There are natural ways. I’ll try those before the sticky tape.

I love the early mornings when the air is filled with the songs of birds. When I get downstairs, the first thing I do is let the dogs out, yes I do. They run downstairs to the yard. I often stand on the deck to watch them. This morning I saw blue jays, robins, a couple of doves and a woodpecker. The morning was bird noisy, and Henry added a bark or two.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know birds except pigeons, blue jays and robins. I thought of robins as the harbingers of spring. The pigeons were city birds. The blue jays were the biggest birds, and I thought they were bullies. I remember bird houses, but I don’t remember seeing bird feeders.

At the zoo was a tropical bird exhibit, an aviary. The building was huge with a high ceiling. The air was thick with humidity. It was free flight. The birds flew overhead and sometimes dive bombed us. I remember people squealing and covering their heads with their hands. That was fun to watch.

I have two concerts left this week, one today and one Saturday. Tomorrow I need to grocery shop. I have a list.

My life, of late, has been mostly routine. The weather hasn’t changed in the last few days. We still have sun and a blue sky. It is 50° and will stay 50° all day. I have been a sloth wearing my cozies most days, reading and eating bonbons, but yesterday I did a few chores. My sloth screamed. I started putting my winter clothes away. My bedroom is in disarray. Folded winter clothes destined for bins are on chairs. I just have to substitute winter for summer in the bins. Today I started cleaning my dining room. I’ll finish that and the living room. I’ll also water the plants. I’m thinking I already need a nap.

My dance card for the week is uke heavy. Today is practice, tomorrow is my lesson and a concert and another concert on Thursday. The big concert is Saturday at Margaritaville in Hyannis for the Parrot Head Convention. I’ll use my Hawaiian uke and wear my favorite Hawaiian shirt.

I am a collector. I define that as three or more similar items. I have lanterns, baskets, decorations, glassware, special Christmas ornaments, commemorative tee-shirts, cake decorations and, one of my favorites, cook books with recipes from literature. I have too much from Ghana to list, but I think of them as memories, treasures.

When I bought my house, my parents came down to see it. My mother brought some of my childhood memories with her. One is a wooden chair. My grandmother’s brother made it for me when I was around three. It has been painted white. It has survived all of us. Yellow ceramic chickens from Fannie Farmer always held soft boiled eggs. My mother would cook the eggs, put them in egg cups and slice off the tops of the eggs. She’d served them with toast cut to fit the eggs. It was one of my favorite breakfasts. She brought down a few of the chicken and rooster cups. A couple have no beaks. They are on the window sill in the kitchen. I still use them. My mother brought my childhood books. Many were gifts while others I bought with my fifty cent allowance, leaving me a penny. Those were mostly girl detective books like Trixie Belden and Donna Parker. The classics too were in the pile, books like Heidi, Treasure Island, Black Beauty and Zorro. I bought a bookcase just for those books.

One of my siblings, who shall remain unnamed, lacks sentiment. The treasures my mother brought down were junk. I didn’t bother to explain. They are way beyond my sibling’s ken.

It is another delightful day, warm in the mid 50’s. The blue sky is striking. The sun is bright. I stood outside on the deck for a while. The dogs were running in the yard. Nala took the lead. I noticed how much trash was in the yard and decided to take my prisoner stick and clean up. I picked up all sorts of trash, compliments of Nala. She had one bread wrapper in her mouth and teased me with it. I filled a bag with trash.

When I was a kid, I remember the trash truck. It was loud. Two trash men hung off the back holding on to their barrels, big plastic, filthy barrels with one hand while holding on to the truck with the other. They’d fill the barrels with trash from the sidewalk barrels then empty the trash into the back of the truck. From the top of the back a presser would slowly drop to the trash and crush it. That was my favorite part.

Yesterday I went to the dump. When I was pressing down the trash in a bag before I left, I slashed my finger, a thumb, on what I figured was the lid from a can. It bled a lot.

My mother colored better than any of us. She could shade the colors so that one crayon was many colors. I was a bit jealous. My colors were always bright, never muted. I got new boxes of crayons every Christmas and most Easters. The number of crayons varied. One box even had a crayon tip sharpener. It looked a lot like a pencil sharpener. We almost never threw a crayon away. The pieces went into a cigar box. The problem was we ripped off the color descriptions when we sharpened. The nuances disappeared. Brick red was just red. Burnt orange was just orange.

I have some boxes I never opened. They are special boxes. One is the last box with some colors soon to be discontinued. Another is a Crayola anniversary box. The last box my mother put in my Christmas stocking has 96 colors and a sharpener. I still have it. Last Christmas my sister gave me a coloring book and crayons. The title of the coloring book is My Coloring Book, Ghana. It has cute animals, African masks, a map of Ghana divided into regions and the Ghanaian flag. On the opposite side of the drawing is place to write the date of completion. On the back cover it says, “For children under 8.”

The paper isn’t published on Saturdays. My morning routine is discombobulated. I wander the house. I wonder what is happening in the world. I long for my puzzles and the comics. I know I can read the paper on-line, but that just doesn’t feel right. I need ink on my fingers. My day has gone awry.

The morning is beautiful, a little chilly but chilly is spring on Cape Cod. My den window gives me a small view of the world, my world anyway. I see clouds and I see sun. Everything is still. It is in the high 40’s where it will stay all day. The dogs have been out longer than usual. They are late for their morning naps. Their day has gone awry.

I was daydreaming this morning. What if I had three wishes? What would they be? Wishing for money would be easy, but I wouldn’t waste a wish on it. I’d wish to go back in time to relive a day or a night, not something huge but something shiny in my memory drawers. One of them would be a Saturday night in my parents’ kitchen. We’d all be at the table playing cards. My Uncle Jack is there, as he was so many Saturday nights. The air is smoky and the back door is open hoping to draw the smoke. On the counter is a temporary bar. Whoever gets up is the bartender. We’re playing high-low Jack. My father won the bid. He was a bid fiend. Toward the end of the game someone dropped a trump card, and he lost the hand, one he needed desperately. He started foaming at the mouth. He fell off the bench on his back. He was on the floor still holding his cards and yelling. We were all laughing so hard he stayed on the floor for a bit. Every time I remember I laugh.

My second wish would be to relive the trip to Belgium and the Netherlands with my parents and my sister Sheila. We laughed so many times. We stopped in a restaurant for lunch or dinner. I don’t remember. My mother and sister went to the bathroom. My father and I were reading the map figuring our next route. All of a sudden flames came through the middle of the map from the candle on the table we had paid no attention to. The crowd roared laughing. My mother and sister came back to the table and wanted to know why everyone was laughing. My father held up the map. That trip was filled with laughter.

My last wish would any evening in Bolga with my friends Bill and Peg. We ate dinner together every night. We laughed and chatted about our day, about going to the market or the meat store or about something one of our students said. We never tired of each other. After dinner we played games. We did the alphabet game with initials to which we had to attach a person’s name. We challenged each other with paddle ball, the wooden paddle with the red ball attached to the paddle with an elastic. It had come in one of the packages from my mother. We played so many times until the elastic broke. We played Password, another gift from my mother, so many times we had the cards memorized. When we challenged other people, we never lost, except on purpose.

This is the longest Coffee I have ever written, but I couldn’t stop. My muse was frenzied. My fingers flew. I was caught in my own memories. My day has no longer gone awry. It is a special day!

The nights are cold but the mornings are lovely with bright sun and blue skies. The backyard rough, Nala’s favorite spot to lie down, is getting warmed by the sun. I woke up, the start of our usual morning routine. The dogs harassed me out of bed. Nala is the worst. I pretended to be asleep, but she wasn’t buying it so I had no choice but to get out of bed. I went downstairs, let the dogs out then made my coffee. The dogs hurried back inside for their first treats of the day, peanut butter biscuits. I made toast. The dogs came back in, had another treat then went for their morning naps on the couch. I read the paper, ate my toast and had two cups of coffee. The morning was complete.

My afternoons are more haphazard. The dogs sort of dictate what happens. Nala goes in and out. Henry goes out, but I have to let him in. If I don’t see him, he whacks the dog door or sticks his head inside. If the front door is open, Henry watches and is ready to bark at my movement. Nala doesn’t care. Sometimes I don’t know where the dogs are. I check outside or call them. I feel sort of silly when I hear a dog hit the floor from upstairs on my bed.

My mornings in Ghana were also routine. They seldom varied. I woke up to the sounds of sweeping as my students swept around the buildings and the paths. I heard water hitting the metal buckets when the students were starting to take their bucket baths. I got up and got ready. I had my first cup of coffee in my giant mug then I taught my first class. After that, I went home for breakfast, two eggs and toast. The eggs were cooked in groundnut, peanut, oil and were delicious. In between the next two classes I went home and had more coffee. I sat out front on my steps, finished my coffee then walked back to the classroom block to teach another lesson. That was the end of my morning.

When I was a kid, there was no leash law, but Duke, our boxer, was kept inside in the mornings when we all walked to school, but sometimes he would escape. When he did, he’d follow us to St. Patrick’s or follow the kid next door to the East School. My father would try to catch him. He didn’t always. Duke would look at my father then keep running. That infuriated my father. It amused the rest of us.

My dance card is empty until next week. I have a few chores I’d like to finish but I won’t care if I don’t.

I am a lover of mornings. The early sounds are bird songs. The dogs romp in the yard then nap on the couch. I read the paper and do the puzzles. The house smells of coffee brewing and bread toasting. I usually have a couple of cups of coffee. That’s how we begin the day.

The sun this morning was a bit late. The sky was cloudy and the air had a leftover dampness from last night, but the sun finally appeared framed in a blue sky. It is supposed to be around all day. It will even get to the high 50’s, sweatshirt weather.

When I was a kid, I always walked to school. I walked with my friend who lived up the street in the same duplex where my family lived for a few years. It had only two bedrooms. After my sister was born, we moved down the hill to another duplex, one with three bedrooms. We lived there until we moved to the cape.

While I was out yesterday, I noticed a carnival being set up in a field. That reminded me of the field below my street where a few carnivals used to set up. I liked carnival rides. The Ferris wheel was always a favorite ride. I loved when the Ferris wheel stopped to let people on or off, and I was stuck at the top. My friend was always afraid, and I didn’t help. I wiggled back and forth so the car moved, swayed. She always screamed. I just took in the view. The rides I didn’t go on went in circles because the worst ride I ever took was one which not only went in circles but also had covered cars so you spun around in darkness. When that ride stopped, I got sick over the side. That was the last time I rode in circles.

When I was young, my world was narrow. It was my town and a bit of the towns around me. That was enough for a while. I had a route when I was riding my bike. I stopped for golf balls by the course, I checked out the horses in the town barn, I stopped at the junk man’s house. I remember his porch was so filled with newspapers it leaned and looked ready to fall down The barn too was filled. I always wondered what he did with all those newspapers. The piles only got bigger.

When I was growing up, I traveled on my bike. I traveled my town and the towns around me. When I was eleven, I started to dream about traveling the world, a dream prompted by a classmate who went to England to visit his grandmother. I vowed I would out do him.

My family went to Niagara Falls. We went to the Canadian side, but for me, it didn’t count. We traveled by car.

Ghana counted.

The morning is lending itself to leisure. I’ve done all the newspaper puzzles, had a couple of cups of coffee and two pieces of toast, the heels from my last loaf. I then read the mail from the last couple of days and turned on a movie, 1956’s Indestructible Man. It is so bad it is good.

Earlier was cloudy, but now we have a combo of clouds, the sun and some blue sky. Last night was cold, but the morning is warmer, in the low 40’s. Tonight will get cold again.

The other day I replaced the finished toilet paper roll in the upstairs bathroom. That gave rise to the oft debated question of toilet paper, over or under. I prefer over. My mind then looped and didn’t stop there. It jumped to another question. I wondered about paper towel rolls. They go over, always over. Why is there no controversy?

When I was a kid, my father always went crazy if one of us left a dirty glass on the counter or an empty roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. He used to yell and call the perpetrator lazy for not washing out the glass and putting it in the sink. The toilet paper was stored in the linen closet. That was the excuse. He was right about lazy.

This is spring break week. We never went anywhere as my father worked. His vacation was always in the summer. We had to entertain ourselves. Every day was like a Saturday. We rode bikes. I usually went to the library at least once. I sometimes stayed home and read or watched TV. I don’t remember being bored.

In Ghana I lived alone on the school grounds on one side of a brand new duplex. At first it was difficult. I was homesick, my students didn’t understand my English and I was lonely. I had no one to talk to about how I felt. I wrote letters, not the newsy life in Ghana letters but ones where I poured out my feelings, my sadness, my loneliness. After I’d finished the letter, I’d tear it up. I never send a single one. I didn’t want my parents to know what was happening. I just needed to write those feelings down. After a few months, I didn’t need to write those letters any more. I only wrote newsy letters. I felt connected. I felt at home.

My dance card has only uke events this week, practice, my lesson and two concerts. We are still working on The Beatles book and also now on Jimmy Buffett.

(Side Note: Just in case you run into him, the Indestructible Man can be killed with a bazooka and a flame thrower. Arm yourself accordingly.)

My heat came on this morning. Last night got down to the mid 30’s. Right now it is in the mid-40’s. This same weather pattern is predicted for the next few days.

It is a pretty morning. The sun is bright and glints through the trees. The sky is deep blue. The air is still. The only clouds are puffy and white. What I find surprising is the prediction for this afternoon, rain. I expect more clouds, grey clouds.

I have favorites memories. Some of them date back to when I was a kid. I think of winter and flying down the snowy hill on my sled and of summer and flying down that same hill but on my bike. I loved all the Christmas preparations, the Advent calendar, the tree in the corner ready to be decorated, sugar cookies, the Sears wish book and the house windows with lit candles breaking through the winter darkness. I loved summer and a Sunday at the beach where my mother’s peppers and eggs were my favorite beach food.

I remember my very first plane ride. It was Hyannis to Boston on an old prop plane. It was a gift in my Easter basket. On the plane, you could see the pilots and the walkway to the seats went up hill. We flew over the coast and the ocean. It was a spectacular ride.

In Ghana, I made a memory every day. Every morning felt new. I woke up to the crowing of roosters. I loved my students and my school. I ate food I’d never of before Ghana. I traveled West Africa and felt comfortable. I remember my friends and I landed at the airport in Ouagadougou very late at night, no taxis available. We slept on benches. In the morning when I woke up, I saw the cleaners waiting with their mops and brooms until we woke up. They didn’t want to disturb us. My favorite memory is of the night soil man. I was sitting in the outhouse when I heard a noise below me. I stood up. A face appeared in the hole. He greeted me, “Hello, madam,” then grabbed the bucket to empty it.

I’ve ridden in a glider, a hot air balloon, a helicopter, a mammy lorry, a train in the Andes, a boat across Lake Titicaca and another boat on a three day trip on the Paraná River where only one other person spoke English. I stood on the Equator. I saw a cathedral in a salt mine. I rode a camel in the Sahara. One of my funniest memories was in Niamey, Niger. My friends and I got separated. I found a hotel. It turned out to be a brothel. I heard footsteps all night and knocking on doors. I didn’t sleep at all.

I have more memories, but this musing is long enough.