The rain started last night and continues this morning. It is a light rain, a stick your hand out to check rain. The paws prints are back on the kitchen floor.

The forsythia has bloomed in the front garden. It is a brilliant yellow and the brightest spot in the yard. It screams spring.

During winter, I perfect the sloth in me. I sleep late, leave my bed unmade and graze instead of cooking anything, even an egg. My car gathers dust. The laundry overflows into frightening piles. I almost expect to see it rise from the basket. I wear cozies all day and hope for an empty dance card. My slippers get worn and filled with holes around the big toes. I only go outside for the mail and the morning papers.

For me, spring is more than the calendar. I want a few warm days in a row, color in the garden, the morning songs of birds and fresh air through open windows. This last week I checked all the boxes and declared that spring has finally arrived.

I find I have energy brought by the changing season. I clean a bit and even make my bed. The laundry is down here, one floor away from the washing machine. The basket isn’t even filled. It’s a wonder.

Bill, Peg and I ate breakfast and lunch on the deck. It was the first deck excursion of the season. Nala found shade under the big wooden chair and fell asleep. Henry slept in the open. We sat and talked until the afternoon started to get a little chilly.

I have a winter coat. I didn’t wear it once this winter. I wore my sweatshirts, my hoodies, my fleece or my thick sweater.

When I was a kid, I had a spring jacket. I could barely wait to wear it. I was impatient for the weather to be warm on a spring-like day. I’d even try to get away with wearing it on a cold day, a winter coat day, but my mother always caught me before I could sneak out the door to school. She was right, but that didn’t make me happy.

Today I’ll make my jollof rice, grab my small Ghanaian flag to use as a garnish of sorts and wear clothes made in Bolga by a seamstress in the market. Today I’ll celebrate with other returned Peace Corps volunteers. We have a camaraderie born by shared experiences no matter where we served, no matter the country. I am looking forward to this afternoon. I don’t even mind cooking, getting dressed, or going out. It is, after all, spring.

Today is damp and cloudy so the air, at 57°, is chilly. I have resurrected my sweatshirt and donned a pair of socks. The dogs are out longer and run around more. Nala, more than Henry, is affected by heat. That tongue of hers hangs low. They have yet to have their morning naps.

When I think about growing up in my town, I can still see it as it was. All the old places, all the stores up town and all the open fields and woods are bright in my memory drawers. I drive by houses and remember who lived in them. I can remember where houses used to be. I can close my eyes and see my classrooms year by year in my grammar school, in the old and new buildings. I can even remember the faces of some of my teachers. Miss Quilter wore thick glasses. Sister Eileen Marie was huge and seldom stood. She sat at her desk almost all day. Miss Konopacka was strict. She was tall. My mother went to school with her, and my sister still hates her. Mrs. Kerrigan, my second grade teacher, was old. She wore a day dress and had her grey hair in a bun. She was gentle. In the seventh grade, Mrs. Corcoran was the teacher who told me basketball and the like were for boys. I remember she also wore a day dress which I came to believe was a uniform of sorts for old teachers. My grandmother wore the same style. Sister Hildegarde is the nun I remember the most. She was really old and easily duped. I admit I took advantage. Many times I left school early or was late getting back after lunch, sometimes as late as an hour. She never reprimanded me or my friend Jimmy, my accomplice in crime. We had free rein. I wondered if she even noticed.

The American flag and the Ghanaian flag hang off trees in the front of my house. I have a Peace Corps flag which needs Betsy Ross to sew the holes torn by branches before I can hang it. I also have decorative flags for all the holidays. I’m thinking the front of my house will soon resemble the row of flags outside the United Nations.

Today is a quiet day, but I do need to shop for a few groceries to make jollof rice, a Ghanaian dish I’m bringing to a potluck tomorrow, an RPCV event, a returned Peace Corps volunteer event. In honor of the occasion, I’ll be decked in clothes made from Ghanaian cloth, and I’ll greet people in Hausa, “Sannu.” Hello!

Right now it is 78° with a bright sun, a beautiful blue sky and not a scintilla of wind. My sweatshirt is folded and put away for the meanwhile. I’m wearing my sandals and a short sleeve shirt. I am in summer mode but only for today as tonight will drop to the 40’s and tomorrow will be seasonal, in the 60’s. We may even have rain tomorrow.

My friends have gone home. My house is so quiet without them. We had an amazing time together, even when we did nothing but sit around and talk. We share a long history.

We sat out on the deck and enjoy appies and the sun. Peg brought down Tuesday’s dinner, a New England boiled dinner, and dessert, brownies and my all-time favorite lemon meringue pie. Peg also made an Irish soda bread with cranberries, orange zest and orange juice. Bill cut a piece and came into the den. Nala ran out the back door, a recognized sign of guilt. She had stolen the bread which was left on the counter and was running with it to her usual spot to eat her booty. I never did get a taste. Poor Bill kept apologizing, but it wasn’t his fault. He hasn’t lived with a felonious dog so he didn’t realize food has to be hidden.

My dinner last night was the leftovers, for my appie, a cheese log Peg had made and crackers, the boiled dinner and a thick, brownie with chocolate chips.

We took a long ride through Hyannisport, Centerville and Osterville. Bill and Peg had never been on that side of the cape. They loved the huge, old houses and the views of the water from the yacht club and the church, St. Andrews. They had a mini Kennedy tour as I showed them the Kennedy Compound and St. Francis Xavier church in Hyannis.

Bill brought down his tools and fixed so many things around the house which had been driving me crazy, things like the flag holders outside, my rocking chair, the faucet, my Ring doorbell, the fence, the paper towel holder and so much more. He is a generous man with his time and talents. Peg is as generous with all the food she made and the gifts she brought.

We had Christmas. Carols played as we exchanged gifts. It was still fun so long after Christmas.

We reminisced about staging in Philadelphia before we left for Ghana and about our time together in Ghana. We laughed a lot and remembered friends with whom we had served. We told funny stories about each other. We still fit together.

Spring will drop by this week. The next few days will be in the 60’s, and we could hit 70° on Friday. Now, where did I put that sunscreen?

Today my dance card is filled. I have lists of errands and chores to do to get ready for my friends’ arrival tomorrow. My shopping list is long.

Yesterday I was watching YouTube, and there were pigs. Nala noticed them and watched until the pigs were gone. I think it was the first time she ever watched TV.

When I was a kid, I lived in a wonderful town, a town filled with amazing places. It had a dairy and cows. I used to bike there to watch the cows in the field. I remember the route from the barn to the field was often muddy and filled with cow prints. The cows were black and white and later I learned they were Holsteins. We had a zoo. It wasn’t very big, but it had an elephant, a young elephant. On one side of the zoo were the small cages where animals like raccoons lived. I remember the cages were wooden and painted green. It had a petting zoo. Nursery rhymes were the motif. I remember the clock, the Hickory Dickory clock. Picnic tables were under trees at one end of the zoo. I used to bring my lunch and sit at one of the tables.

We had a girl scout camp in the woods across from the zoo, Camp Aleaska. It had a huge room with a huge fireplace. Along the walls were storage areas which we could sit. They were where the cots were stored. The cots were the sort with canvas in the middle and wood pieces at each end to keep the cots upright. It had a kitchen and a bathroom. One room was off the big room. That’s where the counselors slept when we had overnights. The trees around the camp were tall pines. All the paths were covered in brown pine needles.

I walked the railroad tracks. Trains still ran back then. I’d put a penny on the tracks so the train could run over them and fatten them. The train station was brick. It was across from the box factory.

The world of my childhood has disappeared. The rail road tracks are gone. The station is still there and has been many things including an insurance office and a store with trinkets. The zoo is still there, far better than my old zoo, but there isn’t an elephant. The farm has no cows. It sells stuff like mulch. I don’t know about the Girl Scout camp, but I didn’t see the dirt road leading to the camp the last time I drove by it.

I never expected my town to stay amazing. It got bigger, way bigger, the way many places do over time. My sister still lives there around the corner from where my parents lived. I seldom visit.

Happy Easter!

Today is a pretty day. It is in the mid 40’s, but with only a little wind, it feels warm. The dogs are wearing their Easter bandanas. Nala is chewing hers and will not sit still for a picture in her Easter finery. Henry runs off if he sees a camera of any sort.

I am not wearing Easter finery. Today will be a casual day. I do have an Easter dinner. The first courses are clam chowder and shrimp. Dinner is ham with mango chutney, au gratin potatoes and roasted tricolor carrots. Dessert is a chocolate cupcake. A rabbit sits on top. I’ll eat around two, the universal dinner time on holidays.

When I was a kid, my Easter basket was always filled with goodies and small gifts. A stuffed animal stood tall in the basket. It was usually Peter Rabbit in his blue vest. I never saw girl rabbits. I guess they didn’t have a story the way Peter did. I still have a Peter Rabbit sitting in a basket. He is living the good life.

The bottom of the basket had green grass. It was plastic and stuck to any half-eaten chocolate.

We always got a chocolate rabbit. It was chocolate all the way through. The ears were the first to go. They were the easiest parts to eat. The body took some gnawing. The jelly beans were huge and strewn on the grass at the bottom of the basket. The other eggs were oval and filled with something white. They were hard and needed a strong bite. They too were on the green grass. The Peeps were always yellow. They were squishy.

When I was young, we lived in a duplex, and the kitchen was small. The table only had enough room for four chairs around it and one at the end. My mother ate at the counter. Even when there was room, she always ate at the counter if we ate in the kitchen. Later, we lived in a house with a dining room. The table always looked festive decorated for Easter. It groaned with food.

The flowers are blooming. Everything is awake. I saw a chipmunk this morning. Yesterday I saw a cardinal. This week will be spring warm even here on Cape Cod.

This morning is a delight. The sun is squint your eyes bright. A deep blue cloudless sky extends across the earth to the horizon. The breeze is ever so slight and only the top branches twist and sway. It is sweatshirt chilly at 40° but will get a little warmer as the day gets older.

This is a sloth day. All my chores are done. Yesterday I was busy. Today I’ll relax, maybe watch a movie or two. I have nothing pressing.

My concession to the new day was to change my cozies for more cozies. I’m in blue today even down to my socks, not a reflection of my mood, just my choice of clothing.

I never counted the days until the Easter Bunny. Counting was reserved for Santa. On this Saturday before Easter I’d take my usual Saturday night bath then I’d ready my new clothes for tomorrow and the unveiling. I knew what to expect from the Easter Bunny. My Easter basket had traditional treats. I knew they’d be a chocolate rabbit, jelly beans, soft Peeps, a coloring book and crayons, a stuffed animal and a few small toys. The coloring book was Easter with rabbits and eggs to color. I used the white crayon on my rabbits, but the white was almost a hidden color so I went artistically crazy on the eggs. They were bright and colorful. I remember on some pages the rabbits pushed wheel barrels filled with eggs. I never questioned that rabbits wore blue weskits and no pants and walked upright on their tiptoes.

I have never been one for fancy, even Easter fancy. I remember one year when I chose a skirt and matching jacket, sort of a suit but not one with strict lines. I chose loafers. My thought was I could wear those shoes after Easter. We went to my grandparents in East Boston. As usual my mother and the aunts were in the kitchen. I was in the next room when I heard my aunt ask my mother why I wasn’t wearing Easter clothes. I figured she meant a fancy dress of some sort, white gloves, white ankle socks with lace and patent leather shoes. It was obvious she didn’t know me well. My mother gave her a great answer and just said that wasn’t what I wanted. The conversation ended.

Today is warm but cloudy. Last night it rained. I heard it hit the window around 1:30. It didn’t rain long, just enough to make the day a bit damp.

Next week, my friends Bill and Peg are coming to visit. We met first in Philadelphia in June 1969 at Peace Corps staging before we left for Ghana. Together we played hooky from a few lectures and toured the city. We went to the top of the City Hall tower for a panoramic view of Philadelphia. One day we visited the Museum of Art and walked up what would be Rocky’s steps. We took a little historical side trip to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. We enjoyed the sights of Philadelphia and, even better, weren’t missed at the lectures.

I have a list of things I have to do, a weird list like find a timer for my deck lights, work on my little library fixing the tape hiding the bird holes and also neatening and changing out some books. I need to load the car with trash and recyclables. The menu and shopping list will take some time, imagination and creativity. I won’t bore you with the rest of my list, but it is long.

Where is this going? I am taking a short hiatus today. It is already afternoon, and I haven’t done much yet so I have to get busy.

Talk to you tomorrow!

Today is a dreary day, a damp, foggy day. Yesterday it rained, and everything is still wet. The forecast is for a warm day, a 60° day, and I’m hopeful. I did have a wonderful surprise, a spring surprise, when I went to get the papers. It drove the dreariness away. My hyacinths have bloomed. The garden has pink, purple and lilac flowers. This morning my garden is a delight.

My father always planted flowers in the small garden in front of the picture window by the front door. Usually they were pansies. They looked like a Disney cartoon, a musical with singing and dancing pansies. All the flowers have faces and are wearing bonnets. Their colors are bright yellow, purple, pink and blue. They have skinny legs. They have high pitched, squeaky voices and sing of spring.

Yesterday morning was busy. I had my uke lesson, went to the dump and shopped at Agway. Yesterday afternoon I took a nap. As for today, my dance card is empty.

I always think of winter as stubborn, resolute maybe, and quiet. Spring is loud. The mornings are filled with bird songs. Yards are being spring cleaned to the sounds of mowers and leaf blowers. They always start early in the morning. The kids down the street wake from their winter hibernation. They shoot baskets at the hoop in their front yard. I can hear the bounces of the basketball on the street and the kids’ voices when they score. The younger kids ride their bikes up and down the street. The drabness of winter disappears. The gardens scream color.

I love when I can open the windows to let the sweet spring air blow away the stale air of winter. The house smells clean and new.

When I shop this time of year, I always buy yellow dafs, the harbingers of spring. They brighten the kitchen and the den, the two rooms where I spend the most time.

Spring is sweatshirt weather. The jackets and fleece are put away for another year. Even on a coldish day I won’t go back to winter garb. Corduroy has had its season. I’m wearing sneakers instead of my winter Uggs. Yesterday it was my tie-dye Converse high tops.

This morning I’m wearing sandals and socks but in the house where only I can see them. I always think of socks with sandals as an odd combination. The socks are winter and the sandals are summer. The wearer should pick one or the other.

Though it may be a cloudy day, it is warm, 59°, and it may hit 60°. Spring is in the air today. It is sweatshirt weather.

When I was a kid, I lived in the same town where I was born. We lived in a duplex in the project. The project was loaded with kids, a few my age but most around my sisters’ ages. There was a parking lot at the top of the hill, but no one parked there so we used to skate on the empty lot. Back then my skates were attached to my shoes and tightened with a key. I never wore sneakers when roller skating because the skates didn’t stayed attached to the sneaker sides. I used to love the feeling on the soles of my feet through my shoes when I skated on the tar in the lot. Sometimes I was brave enough to skate down the sidewalk from the top of the hill to my house, halfway down the hill, but if I went too fast, I’d get scared and throw myself on the grass beside the sidewalk, but once in a while, despite my heroic efforts, I’d fall on the sidewalk. I’d scrape my knees or my elbows or both.

When I was young, I’d eat things I’d never eat now, and now I eat things I’d never have touched back then. Sardines roil my stomach if I see them now in the open can side by side head to tail. The idea that they were a go to snack for me gives me the chills. I’d munch them on Saltines. On Fridays during Lent we didn’t eat meat. On some Fridays we’d have formerly frozen fish sticks and fries. I remember the crispy fish sticks were white inside. I have no idea the sort of white fish they were, and I don’t remember their taste. I don’t eat frozen fish now. I can’t even remember the last time I did.

My palate expanded, especially in Ghana. I ate goat, fish with heads, hummus, Guinea fowl, Indian food and local foods like cassava, garden eggs and plantain. On my trip through South America, I ate ceviche and in Ecuador I ate what I found out later was guinea pig. In Finland I just pointed at the food I wanted as I didn’t speak Finnish, and the second language there is Swedish. Most of the time my eyes chose well.

If you’ve been around a while, you know I don’t beans except green beans which aren’t really beans to me. I find kidney beans disgusting. Even the name is disgusting. Baked beans, nope. Lima beans are gross. My chili never has beans. Retired beans look like something expelled by a baby at one end or the other. I don’t even sing the bean song.

The sunny day today and the pretty day today are wrapped by the cold day today. Right now it is 46°, but it’s a cold 46° driven by the wind. I had to close the backdoor as the wind was coming through the dog door. Today is what passes for early spring on Cape Cod.

When I was a kid, we used to cross the field below my street as a shortcut to school. I’m not sure it was much of a shortcut, but it was a straighter route. I remember crossing the field on windy days. The wind went up the cuffs of my coat and billowed my sleeves. We’d spread out our arms and let the wind take us. It felt like flying. We giggled the whole time.

The best of the early spring was the morning. The darkness had disappeared. We walked in the light. The air was crisp and smelled of grass and flowers. The birds sang. We always talked in whispers. We’d get to school and wait in the schoolyard. We stood in small groups. Girls were on one side, and boys were on the other. The bell would ring, and we’d all quietly get in line then walk into the building. In the Harry Potter film The Deadly Hallows Part 2, there is a scene where all the students walked in lines to the hall and stood there quietly while they were confronted by Snape in his hunt for Harry. The first time I saw that scene, I was reminded of our lines and the quiet and the nuns in their Snape roles. They even wore black.

The desks in my first few grades didn’t have tops to be lifted. Everything was stored in the opening at the end of the desk facing me. To find anything, I had to bend my head down so I could see into the hole. Often I had to move a book or two to get the book I needed. Speed was of the essence. We were being watched.

Our lunch boxes were stored under our seats. In the early grades I had lunch boxes with TV characters on them. I still have my Mickey Mouse Club lunch box. In the fourth grade, I went to patterns. It was a linear change governed by age. I remember my fourth grade lunch box looked like a tartan. In the sixth grade I started carrying a brown paper lunch bag, the ultimate in lunch time sophistication. I used the brown bags until I graduated from the eighth grade.

Today is a bit of a nothing day, a prime sloth day. I haven’t anywhere I need to be. I have nothing needing doing. I’ll stay in my cozies. I’m hankering for a cup of hot chocolate though I always still think of it as cocoa.