I woke up to rain. It was heavy at times then stopped. The sun came out but the clouds returned. It is a warm day at 55°. Light rain is predicted.

Everywhere I walk in this house clumps of dust mixed with dog hair fly in front of me. I need to clean, but my sloth holds sway. I’ve decided I want the same deal as the Grimm shoemaker. He had no money and no customers and only enough leather for one pair of shoes. He left the shoe pieces on his workbench and went to bed. He figured he’d finish in the morning. When he woke up, the pieces had been sewn into a beautiful pair of shoes. They sold right away, and he was able to buy more leather. He left those pieces. They too were made into shoes, beautiful shoes. The next night he and his wife hid and watched as two elves stitched the leather and made shoes. Those sold at a great price. There is more but not much more to the story. I’m thinking I should leave the vacuum, the polish and dust cloths out. Maybe when I wake up, the house will be clean.

Mrs. McGaffigan lived in the big house on the bottom corner of my street. We shared a party line. We each had separate rings so we knew to whom the call was directed. The phone had no dial My brother and I used to listen to her. We’d pick up the handset and listen. We tried not to breathe but she’d hear us and yell. We’d put the handset right down and laugh. We got a rotary phone. No longer could we be entertained by Mrs. McGaffigan.

When I was in the first grade, I learned to print. I was taught small letters and capital letters. I always used a pencil because of the eraser. Penmanship was one of our subjects and was listed on the report card. We either got an S for satisfactory, an NI for needs improvements or a U for unsatisfactory. It was in the second grade when we started to learn cursive. First we practiced writing exercises. We had to draw things like interlocking circles and straight up lines in a slant. My circles were never good. They were sort of short and long in the same line. I remember my hand rested on the paper and the side of my hand blurred the letters. Cursive wasn’t easy. We had a card of each letter around the outside of the black board. The card had the capital letter and the small letter. We practiced during penmanship. By the third grade, we never used printed letters again.

When I was in the ninth grade, I had to learn to print all over again. We all took the national Latin exam and only printing was allowed. I loved the irony.

Mother Nature can’t seem to make a decision regarding the weather. It is 50° but the wind is strong and cold. We do have some sun and a bit of blue but there are clouds, no rain, just clouds. I did a few errands. When I got home, my landscapers were clearing the limbs, raking the gardens, blowing the drive-way clean and cleaning off the deck. My yard looks great. Now I am in the hunt to find someone for a dump run.

The dafs have buds. The tops of the grape hyacinths have broken through in the front yard. I saw purple croci, the first flowers of spring. Color is coming back. Winter grey is disappearing. I feel like singing a happy tune while skipping down the sidewalk.

I loved it when the buds appeared, tiny specks on the branches and the bushes. I could put away my winter coat. I still dressed in layers but light layers compared to winter. The sweet aroma of spring arrived with the flowers. The mornings were still chilly, but the afternoons got warmer. We could play outside in the afternoons. The sun hung around longer every day.

I didn’t learn to do house things when I was a kid. My mother cooked all the meals, baked the cookies and brownies, cleaned the house, made my bed and did the wash. When I was in college, I’d bring my laundry home. Once I tried to wash the laundry myself. A buzzer went off and the washing machine stopped. It kept buzzing. I had no idea what that meant. When I opened the machine, the clothes were still soaked. I wrung them as well as I could then put the clothes in the dryer. I was not a fan of washing clothes or cleaning.

During training in Ghana, the hunt went for someone to wash our clothes. We found some women in each village where we stayed. It only took a day for them to wash and iron clothes. The cost was small. I never did my own laundry, not once in over two years. I did bake, made cookies for the first time ever. My mother had sent me Christmas cookie cutters so. I gave sugar cookies a try. I even made frosting. Those were darn good cookies.

Now, I love to cook, to bake. I am unafraid of trying new dishes even with company. I haphazardly clean. I still don’t do laundry.

When I look out the window, I see sun and a vibrant, take your breath away blue sky. I see nothing moving, not even the smallest branches. It all looks perfect as long as I stay inside. It is cold again, 38°. It will get warmer, possibly up to 41°, but tonight will be in the 20’s. Every day has this same pattern. Old Man Winter just won’t let go.

My days this time of year are mostly routine. Winter does that. When it is cold, I prefer to stay home. I have plenty of books. I have movies to watch and popcorn to eat. I stay in my cozies all day. Sometimes I take a nap. Only my ukulele lesson and practice get me out of the house. They are givens. Now and then I also have an errand or two. These quiet days my version of hibernation.

We never counted the days until Easter. We didn’t light any candles like we did for Advent. My mother took us Easter clothes shopping. We also got new shoes. My sisters liked shiny patent leather. They liked frilly dresses and hats. I was never one for fancy. I remember one Easter when I chose a skirt, a blouse and a jacket. We went to my grandparents’ house after Easter dinner as did aunts and uncles and cousins. My mother, grandmother and the aunts were always in the kitchen sitting around the table. I was heading into kitchen when I heard my name mentioned. I stopped to listen. One of my aunts wanted to know why I was so plainly dressed for Easter. My mother told her it was my choice. That ended the conversation.

When I was a kid, every Easter was warm. That’s what I remember. The trees had buds and some early curled light green leaves. The winter brown grass was giving way to green grass. We stood on the steps for pictures to show off our new outfits. The steps were in the sun giving an allusion of warmth, of spring. It didn’t matter how cold it was. We always smiled.

I still have a concert tomorrow, the sixth one this week, so I decided to post tonight. The week has been hectic. It started with my toothache last weekend. Today my shower rod fell and hit me in the head. I couldn’t get it hung back up so it is on the side of the tub. I need a new shower curtain rod or I have to start taking baths.

When I was a kid, I went to a dentist who used gas. I loved it. I’d drift off then when I woke up, everything was done. My father was horrified at the cost so he decided to take me to his childhood dentist whose office was in East Boston. First of all, the guy was ancient. I think he shuffled when he walked. He used no Novocain, no gas, nothing numbing. I think he was smiling as his hand moved the drill to my mouth. The pain was horrific. My fingers dug into the chair arms and left permanent impressions of my fingerprints. I cried silently. Tears fell down my cheeks. I jumped out of the chair when he was finished. I barely survived. I developed a healthy hatred of dentists. When I saw Little Shop of Horrors, I swear the dentist, Orin Scrivello, was based on that dentist in East Boston. Next came Marathon Man. Even now I get the chills thinking about the dentist who wanted information from Dustin Hoffman and kept drilling his teeth hoping to extract the information by inflicting pain.

Before I left for Ghana, I had to have a physical and a dental check. I found a dentist near my college and explained what I needed. He was fine with everything. I told him I was not a fan of dentists and why. He told me not to worry. He was excellent. He filled even a hint of a cavity. The only thing he didn’t have time to do was clean my teeth. During staging, before we left for Ghana, we each had to have a dentist check our teeth. Mine told me I needed a cleaning which he did. I didn’t even mind.

Now, I no longer leave finger imprints on the dentist’s chair. I visit my dentist religiously. I even like him, but I won’t ever watch Marathon Man again.

Mother Nature is running amok. The rain started last night and hasn’t stopped. Rain and, yes, even snow have been predicted. It is in the 30’s now, and the temperature will stay right there all night. It is an ugly day.

When I was a kid, my grammar school, St. Patrick’s, had one building opened in 1910. It was across from the convent and beside the rectory. We outgrew the school so a new school was going to be built. I attended the old school for my first, second and fourth grades. My third grade was in the rectory’s garage. In my fourth grade we had double sessions. The start of my fifth grade was in the next town. I loved that old school. It was brick and had two doors, but mostly we used only one. We walked through that door into the school two by two by grade level, maybe a throwback to Noah’s ark. The seldom used door faced houses. I figured out early on that if I exited by that door I could bypass the wait at the main door.

My favorite classroom was when I was in the fourth grade. The room had windows on two sides. They were long windows which could only be opened and closed using a wooden rod with a hook at the top to catch the lock. The lights hung down from the ceiling. On a day like today, a rainy day, despite the lights, the room was dark. The rain drops would hit the windows and would slide down on the glass. I’d watch the drops hit the windows. We were quiet, subdued by the rain. The only sounds were of pages turning and chairs squeaking. It always felt as if we were protected somehow.

My classrooms in Ghana had windows with no glass. Each desk seated two students. There were four classroom blocks with two classes in each. I taught the T2’s, the second years. Because the roofs were metal, heavy rain drowned out any teaching; instead, I assigned reading or writing and just walked around to check progress.

The bathrooms were in a separate building close to the classrooms. I remember the first time a student raised her hand and said, “Please, madam, I have to urinate.”During the mid morning there was break for tea and rolls. I went home and had coffee. One day, when I was returning after the break and was close to the classroom block, I could see my students throwing rocks at some bushes right outside my classroom. I stopped and asked why, “Madam, we are killing the snake.” I nodded and walked into my classroom to wait. It was just an ordinary day.

The morning is ugly, cold and cloudy. The air is damp. Rain is predicted. It is a perfect day to hunker down with a good book, but I have another concert. This one is at the mall. I’ll have to hunker later.

Lately my sloth has held sway. I’ve been lazy. This morning I swept down the stairs, the most cleaning I have done in days. I’ve become more tolerant of dust balls of Henry hair. I clean up a few as I walk down the hall, but mostly, I’ve learned to ignore them. Every time I pat Henry his white fur flies, and he has a lot of hair

I used to get an allowance of fifty cents. That doesn’t sound like much but back then fifty cents was a fortune. My father used to talk about the ant and the grasshopper. The ant worked and saved. The grasshopper played. I was a kid. I was a grasshopper. I remember buying books for forty nine cents which left me a penny. The books were mostly about girl detectives like Trixie Belden. They were published by Whitman. The library didn’t carry those books. I still have a few of them. They have colorful cardboard covers and are in a bookcase in my bedroom. I also read the classics. I remember the sadness of Black Beauty. I thought Jo, Little Women Jo, was brave. She was a rebel. She made choices contrary to the customs of the time. She had her hair cut then she sold it. Her family was appalled. Long hair was femininity, but she sacrificed it for money, for her mother to travel to see her father in the hospital. Jo was my hero. I read Zorro and Heidi and Robert Louis Stevenson. I was a quick reader. Once I started a book I got so enmeshed in the pages everything else disappeared. If my mother called for me and I didn’t answer, she thought I was ignoring her. She didn’t realize I was with Long John Silver.

I have a downstairs book and an upstairs book. I always have a book.

Last night it poured. The dogs stood at the door, looked out and backed into the kitchen. Later, though, they both went outside out of necessity. They both got soaked. It won’t rain again today. The sun has broken through the clouds. Blue had taken over the sky. Right now it is 41°, typical weather for spring here on the cape. Tonight will go down to the high 30’s. Winter is still holding sway.

I have traveled. I fulfilled the promise I made for myself when I was eleven, when I was in the sixth grade. Geography was one of my favorite subjects. I loved all the pictures in my geography book. They became part of my promise. The picture I remember the most is of Christ the Reedemer statue standing at the peak of Corcovado mountain overlooking the city of Rio. That went on the list. I remember the commercials with Juan Valdez and his donkey Conchita who is hauling Colombian coffee beans. Juan wore a soft hat which looked like a fedora. He also wore a serape folded over one shoulder. Going to the mountains and seeing coffee beans growing went on the list. Maybe I’d even run into Juan and his donkey. I made a scrapbook, a journal of my travels before I traveled anywhere. I cut pictures from travel brochures and made up stories about my trip. It was a dream book.

I never found many brochures about traveling in Africa. Egypt was about the only country highlighted with pictures of pyramids in my geography book. Africa seemed strange, excitedly strange. It appeared different than any other place. I put it on the list.

When I was a senior in college before I heard from Peace Corps, my friends and I planned a trip to Europe after graduation. My parents gave me the trip as a graduation present. It was one of those 5 countries in 7 days type trips then I heard from Peace Corps. I was going to Africa. I was fine missing the trip to Europe. After Africa, Europe seemed almost commonplace. People went to Europe. They didn’t go to Africa. I took out books from the library about Africa. Peace Corps sent information and a book about Ghana. I poured through it. I knew very little about Africa and pretty much nothing about Ghana.

I’ve had adventures. I fulfilled most of the dreams, most of the promises I had made when I was eleven, but I still have a few dreams. I think myself lucky in that way.

Mother Nature is pranking me. When I look out the window, I see a lovely morning, bright with sun framed by a blue sky. The air is still. Then I check the weather. It is warm but only in comparison. It is in the 40’s, hoodie weather, sunning on the deck weather. This is spring on Cape Cod.

Yesterday I noticed the daffodils are above ground. I can see the sheathed flower buds. The hyacinths too have poked their heads. I see purple. My grass, or what’s left of my grass, is showing bits of green. Pine branches are still strewn about the front and back yards. Some of them are huge. My front fence is done. It leans. It is rotted in places. I’m going to fence shop and replace it. My landscaper came and we walked the front yard and the back forty. He had one of his guys cut and remove the branch which had fallen across the walk in front. He said I’m on the list. I know he’ll clean the yard when he can. I can wait. He showed me the remains of trees which have to come down. Most are dying. I told him to do what he needs to do.

When I was a kid, I barely noticed the flower beds coming alive. Spring to me meant warmer mornings and no more layering. I loved skipping to school. There was a joyfulness about it, a recognition that spring was gaining hold, that my world was awakening and winter was on the run. Some mornings were still cold, but I had put winter away so I only added a sweater. That was enough.

Some warm mornings I’d ride my bike to school. A bike rack was on the back side of the schoolyard by the fence. It was wooden and painted green. There were slots for the bikes. I never had a lock for my bike. I never worried about it being stolen. It was just a regular bike with brakes on the back side of the pedals and one speed, pedal power. It was blue.

My dance card is still heavy with uke. I have another concert today. It will be my fifth uke event of the week, including practice and a lesson. Tomorrow is another concert. Sunday starts the next week of concerts. The only free day is Monday. I’ll spare you the counting. That means five more concerts after Sunday, all with Irish music. It will be a busy week.

I have been busy the last few days. On Tuesday, I had an early concert, a St. Patrick’s Day concert. We were dressed in all sorts of shades of green. We had noise makers, whistles, and slides. It was a fun concert. Yesterday was Wednesday, my uke lesson day. Today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, I have concerts, still Irish. My poor sloth is hanging on for dear life.

I became a brownie in the second grade. I had the brown uniform, the beanie and the belt with a sort of change purse. The brownie pin was on my hat. I thought the brownie looked like a pixie. I was right. A brownie is a pixie. Next was my fly-up when I became a junior Girl Scout. My uniform was green with a yellow sort of kerchief round the collar. It was tied in a square knot. I still remember left over right and right over left. I had a green beret with the Girl Scout emblem on it, but I missed the brownie. It was a bit whimsical. I had a sash. On it were the badges I earned. They were listed in the Girl Scout handbook. I have one of those. My sister found it and gave it to me at Christmas. It is exactly like the one I had. I’ll admit I started with the easy badges looking to fill my sash. A few years later, I became a senior scout. It meant more badges, overnights at the scout lodge and day trips. I remember getting a tour of Hood Milk. My grandfather who worked for Hood set it up. When I was a junior in high school, I was part of a ceremony which celebrated my troop’s 10 years in scouting. My parents attended. It was special.

I still have friends from all the stages of my life. Some date back to grammar school. We just sort of moved along together. I see high school friends here and there around town. I have new friends, my uke friends. They get me out of the house. They keep an eye on me. I am lucky with my family and my friends.

The rain was heavy. I could hear it hitting the windows. The dogs looked out the door, decided they could wait then walked back into the kitchen and on to the couch. I read the paper. I heard the rain change. It became gentle, almost quiet. The dogs went out. It is warmish at 52°.

I have reached a new low. I am watching about the worst science fiction movie I have ever seen. It is Invasion Earth released in 1983. The film has mostly teens watching horror and sci-fi movie clips in a theater while aliens are replacing people with pods. Sound familiar? How about Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Rodan made a visit. Many clips were from War of the Worlds. The scenes from the Claw were perfectly chosen. That is one ugly bird. Tarantula also dropped by to commit mayhem. As bad as this movie is. I really want to know how it ends. I’m thinking maybe I’m spending too much time alone.

I have a well honed suspension of disbelief. When I watch old black and white sci-fi movies and the low, low budget current science fiction movies, I sort of chuckle at the absurdity of it all but I keep watching. Right now the biggest croc I have even seen is dining on local fishermen. He is the star of this movie. I guessed that as the movie is called Croc.

I taught English. I taught it in Ghana, my first teaching experience, and at the high school level. I caught the virus, that’s what I call the pieces of English which became embedded. I correct grammar, mostly in my head so as not to offend. The worst is the object of the preposition, when it is me instead of i. Example: a package came for Jake and I. Wrong. It should be for Jake and me. I saw pieces from Them, the giant ant movie. The professor told the police chief to aim for the antennae. The chief shot one then the professor said shoot the other. Obliviously the police chief does not know Latin. Antennae means more than one, ending in ae, first declension plural, nominative. I would love not to remember stuff like this, but it doesn’t work that way. I am doomed.