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.

Today is ugly, cloudy and cold. The high will be 50° while the low will fall to the 30’s. It is spring yet it isn’t spring. The house was chilly this morning. I grabbed my fleece. Just a few days ago my windows were open to the warm air. I could smell spring, the flowers and cut grass. Now my house is closed again, fresh air gone. Mother Nature is still toying with us.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a quiet day. Churches were filled. Most stores were closed. Families had a Sunday dinner, always the special meal of the week. The whole family was there. It was a command performance. In the afternoons, lots of families visited relatives. My mother’s side of the family was huge. She had four brothers and three sisters. Only the younger two weren’t married. I was the oldest grandchild.

My grandparents lived in East Boston. I loved visiting the city. There was a corner store right up the street. I’d take my dime, the one my grandfather would give me, and walk up to the store to buy candy. In the summer, people sold Italian ice, slush, out their windows, the windows facing the street. I loved the lemon. We’d play stick ball on the street with a stick, of course, and a half pink rubber ball. The bases were cars, sewer covers and random spots in the sidewalk gutters. We’d play a sort of baseball game against the steps with an uncut pink rubber ball. You’d throw the ball at the steps, and it would sail into the air. Hits were determined by distance. Home runs were always over the heads of the outfielders. You had to keep track of the hits, the imaginary runners on bases and the outs. Arguments were common. East Boston was the first place I ate bakery pizza. The pieces were square and room temperature. Once we walked all the way to Logan Airport and wandered around. The terminals were interconnected flat buildings. You could go up on the roofs and watch the planes coming and going. My mother was angry. I was thrilled.

Sunday night came quickly. My mother would send us to bed early always reminding us Monday was a school day.

The morning is cloudy and damp. Light rain is predicted for most of the day though the sun seems to belie that. It broke through a short while ago. It is 53°. Yesterday I got registered for the dump. Give me an amen!! I went there and emptied my car of boxes and papers. Today I’ll load the car with trash bags and make another dump run. It will take more than a few trips to get rid of all the bags especially the really heavy bags I can’t lift. Those I’ll drag, a technique I’ve used often.

When I was a kid, I never cooked or baked. My mother did it all. I made sandwiches, my culinary delights. My favorite sandwiches were bologna sandwiches. My mother bought bologna in a roll which had to be cut into slices. My knife skills weren’t so great so my slices were odd, thin at one end and thick at the other. Luckily, the white bread was so pliable it molded itself around each end. I added mustard, plain old yellow mustard. My second favorite sandwich was a flutternutter. I made it with smooth peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff. The brand of peanut butter didn’t matter. The Marshmallow Fluff did. It could only be fluff, never Marshmallow Cream. The difficult part of eating that sandwich was it oozed out of the sides. I never did find the perfect proportions.

My grandfather always ate his toast burned on purpose. I later found out the reason. My grandfather’s family had little money. His father had been murdered. His mother had to work. He and his sisters used to walk the train tracks to collect coal pieces which had fallen off the train. One of his sisters took care of them while his mother worked. There were no pop up toasters. On the toasters back then, the bread was loaded on two sides of the toaster where the coils were. Once one side was browned, you had to turn the bread to toast the other side. If you didn’t watch it for even the shortest time, the bread burned on one side. For my grandfather it was his usual breakfast, burned toast. It became comfort food.

Every morning in Ghana, I had the same breakfast, two eggs, coffee and toast. The food was cooked on a charcoal burner. My stove had no gas. The burner resembled a hibachi. A lot of fan action was necessary to get the coal burning exactly right. The eggs were cooked in peanut oil. They were delicious. The bread was toasted by putting it on the sides of the burner. You had to remember to turn the bread or it burned. My grandfather would have been delighted.

Spring has taken hold. It is already 61°. Outside my window, I can see the blue sky, the clouds and that beautiful sun. The air is still. I can hear the birds and their songs. My house is quiet. The dogs are napping. Nala is on the couch, and Henry is on my bed. I found a couple of branches in the living room. Last night Nala was on the couch chewing on a big pine cone. She was not pleased when I took it away, but she’ll forget soon enough.

The spring weather has changed my mood. I’ve stopped dragging my feet. I’m off the couch. I am getting chores done, stuff I’ve ignored for a while. Yesterday I picked up my laundry. Today I’ll put it away. I’m going to get my dump permit. There are bags of trash sitting on the deck and in the front. My car is filled with boxes and bags of newspapers. I’ll get rid of them today and starting tomorrow I’ll do a daily dump run. I’m also going to get those pansies.

Where I lived when I was a growing up was in what we called the project. It had duplexes on the hill and around the small rotary. Every house had kids, some older than I was but more younger. We used to roller skate on the sidewalks and on the always empty parking area at the top of the hill. We rode bikes down the hill. It was where I perfected biking with no hands. In winter, the hill was perfect for sledding. The swamp in the woods was where we often ice skated. I remember there were small channels of water leading to the big part of the swamp. When the water froze, we could follow the channels through the woods. What I remember is how clear the water was. I could see grass and small plants under the ice. The field below the houses was for summer, for grasshopper and firefly hunting, catch and release. The swamp was on the other side of it. Blueberry bushes were along one side the field. We’d pick them, not to save but to eat. I always thought the swamp, the field and the trees were magical.

Already I have had my uke practice, my lesson and one concert this week. The music book for the month is The Beatles. The concerts are fun to play.

I want to jump for joy. It is 64°. It is a lovely spring day, the sort we’ve all been craving. The sky is so blue it almost defies description. The air is still. I was on the deck for a while watching the dogs romp through the backyard. That was when I noticed Nala’s latest trash run. She took a bag of Coke cans from under the deck. The cans are all over the yard. I’m going to have to trash pick. I also noticed another bag’s been emptied. That one had common trash. Gee, I wonder who opened that bag.

I think spring is my favorite season. When I was a kid, I loved the morning air. It still held a hint of the chill of late winter, but the day warmed quickly. The air smelled sweet. I watched the progress of the buds on the trees over the sidewalk on my walk to school. I loved the colors of spring, the bright flowers in the front gardens, the dafs and the hyacinths. I could see the yellow buds of the forsythia trees. I was wearing spring, a jacket with no layers. Spring is hopeful.

My bike came out of the cellar, a spring ritual. I rode it in the afternoons. I sometimes went to the white store for my mother, usually for bread. I rode by the golf courses and the stores uptown. I went to the library. Spring gave me a sense of freedom after a cold, snowy winter. We stayed out longer in the afternoons. The street lights came on later. The sun was taking over.

Ghana didn’t have spring, but it had the rainy season. The first rains made rivulets on the packed, dry soil, but soon enough the soil softened. The fields were sown and small green shoots appeared. I was as taken with the rain as I was of spring. It rained almost every day. I didn’t have a raincoat or an umbrella. I got wet. I didn’t mind. Soon enough all the fields were alive. The crops were so tall you couldn’t see between them.. All you could see was the road bordered by the tall millet grasses.

The school garden was tended by Enzo. The garden was beautiful, lush and green. He used to come and chat with me. He spoke pidgin English, but I pretty much understood him. One time he complained, “Am I a garden boy or a gate boy?” That was when the back gate right by my house was locked. I just listened. I gave him seeds. He grew vegetables. I remember when he grew green peppers. They were not popular. They were not hot. My friends and I bought them all.

Every morning when I go get the paper in the front yard I stop to look at the flowers. They are their most beautiful now, tall and colorful. They make me feel a bit giddy.

Today is cloudy. It will be in the low 50’s. I’ll take it despite the wind. I didn’t list any chores or errands for today. As always, there are things I could do and places I could go, but I’ll just wing it.

When I woke up, I didn’t open my eyes right away. I could feel breathing on my face and a paw was pushing at me. I begrudgingly opened my eyes, Nala’s eyes were just inches away from mine. When she realized I was awake, she began jumping on the bed. Henry just stood and watched. I got up.

I try to carry boxes and bags, like I once did. I even used to carry a fifty pound bag of litter from the car to the house. Now I struggle with packages. I can’t seem to convince my head that my body is old, okay, older, a better word, so I keep trying. When I take a filled litter box down the stairs, I go a stair at a time. I stand backwards to the box and hope for the best. I brought a heavy box down today. The box and I made it safely. I added the box to the growing pile of boxes on the deck. They are my targets for later in the week. I just need to get my dump pass.

My father always brought the trash barrels to the sidewalk on trash day. He’d bring in the empty barrels when he got home. When we moved to the cape, my father had to go to the dump with his trash. He never minded. He loved the dump. He loved the high piles of trash and the raucous seagulls circling the piles. He’d go on Sunday. He always invited me. Sometimes I went. When I was in college and a friend came home with me for the weekend, my friend was invited to go with my father. It was almost a command performance.

I’m in the mood for chocolate, maybe I’ll make some brownies.

The morning is the same as the last few mornings, but we are slowly inching to warmer weather. The high today will be 49°. Tonight will be in the low 40’s, finally out of the 30’s at least for one night. The dogs are my barometers. They have been staying outside longer since the days got warmer.

Sunday has always been the quiet day. When I was a kid, we went to church. We always wore our church clothes which meant I wore a dress or a skirt and blouse, never pants. I wore good shoes. I even wore a hat. My father was an usher at an early mass. He always brought home the paper and some donuts. His donuts choices left something to be desired. He bought plain, jelly and lemon. His favorite was a plain donut slathered with butter. We hung around the house until after Sunday dinner. I’d read the Sunday comics. The news didn’t interest me. We’d watch a movie.

Sunday dinner was special. We had a roast, sometimes chicken and sometimes beef. My mother used to put onion slices on the top of the beef. They got crispy and were delicious. I always tried to steal one. Sometimes I did before my mother could catch me. The chicken was usually stuffed. I loved my mother’s stuffing. It was sage. Mashed potatoes and gravy were a given. The vegetables varied. They were all canned back then. I still laugh at my father and his asparagus. My mother bought a small can and served them on a plate just for my father. None of us ate it. He’d pick one spear up with his fork and the asparagus was always limp.

I’ve mentioned before how on Sunday afternoons we often went to my grandparents’ house in East Boston. The kitchen is where my mother, my grandmother and my aunts sat around the table all afternoon. My grandmother always made pasta. It stayed on the stove and was help yourself. The grater and the Parmesan cheese were on the table. That was the first time I grated cheese. My mother used to buy the already grated Parmesan cheese in the jar.

On the way home in the late afternoon, I sometimes fell asleep. The trip wasn’t long, but the car on the road lulled me to sleep. At home, we had a few hours before my mother announced, “Time for bed, school tomorrow.”

What a pretty morning! A slight breeze sways the pine branches. Not a cloud is in the sky, the spectacularly blue sky. Today will be in the low 50’s. Tonight will be in the 30’s. I have a couple of errands which will get me out to enjoy the day. I’m finally going to get those pansies.

When I was a kid, my mother made dinners she knew we’d all eat. We never saw broccoli or cauliflower. Spinach was Popeye’s choice, not ours. The only salads she made were potato, tuna and chicken, never green salad. I didn’t eat beans, but I loved peas. We knew we’d have potatoes at dinner. Mostly they were mashed, but sometimes they were oven fried. Corn was a frequent all season veggie, canned in winter, fresh in summer. My father was the champion at eating corn off the cob. His approach reminded me of typewriter keys moving side to side and up and down. He went so fast that if you sat beside him you got sprayed with flying pieces of corn. For dessert we’d grab some cookies, Oreos, if it was close to when my mother grocery shopped as they disappeared quickly. Chocolate chip was a close second. My mother would sometimes surprise us with brownies. She’d make them then frost them with chocolate frosting and jimmies (sprinkles to some of you). I remember the pan she always used. I can still see it in my mind’s eye.

I remember when my mother visited we often went shopping. We’d stop at a few antique stores. In one there were individual tables and bookcases. I watched a woman adding to her wares. She put down four nested tulip bowls, Fire King bowls. My mother had had a set when I was growing up so I decided to buy the bowls. I still use them, and every time I do, I am reminded of my mother. What a treasure!

When both of my parents came down, my mother and I shopped while my father worked around my front yard. He weeded and mowed. He loved yard work. When I visited them, he’d show me his front lawn. It was his pride and joy.

Henry started barking by the front door. It was his intruder bark. I checked but didn’t see anything or anyone then I heard the mail truck. Henry is not a fan of that truck, and the mailman is not a Henry fan. If he has a package for my house, he leaves it at the end of the walk. Henry keeps barking. That’s all he does as he hasn’t yet learned to open the door. I hope he never does.

What a pretty day! The sun is squint your eyes bright. The blue sky goes on forever. Nothing is moving. It is 49°. The high today will be 53°, spring on Cape Cod. Tonight will drop back to the 30’s, back to winter.

I have two errands left. I also have house chores. I am inundated by spiders. This morning I walked around clearing webs. The fur balls are back. I need to clear yet again. That seems to occur every couple of days. I’ve been using the broom. The balls fly in the air when I sweep. I have a vacuum, but I do like a broom.

When I was a kid, the creatures around me were the usual, the spawns of Satan, an occasional skunk, garter snakes and birds. I don’t remember which birds. I never paid that much attention. I do remember watching a praying mantis, the strangest looking insect I ever saw. It looked like the miniature version of a monster from a Japanese science fiction movie, a little Rodan.

I had chickens in Ghana. My first hen was a gift from a friend. She came with a few eggs on which she’d been sitting. Her roost was the bottom half of a pottery bowl. It was kept in the toilet area of my backyard to keep her and her eggs safe; however, it didn’t keep me safe. (Bathroom talk here) the toilet room was small. I could touch both walls when I sat on the proverbial throne. The hen was right near my feet. If I moved my feet, she’d peck them. I always wore sandals so the pecking hurt. I learned to keep my feet at a distance, difficult in the small space. But there was something neat about this set up. I could watch the progress of the eggs. Sitting there, got to see the first cracks. I could hear the chick pecking away. This hen was free range. Every morning she’d leave the yard followed by her chicks. In the late afternoon she’d return, minus at least one chick then finally all the chicks were gone, taken by some predator. My students later told me she left eggs around the compound instead of in the nesting area. This hen later had a new purpose. She was dinner. I did get more hens and my flock grew. I became a chicken docent. I also became a plucker of great renown.