The clouds are still here though the rain has gone. Partly cloudy is the forecast with a high of 66°. I’ll be home today. I have a few odd tasks on my to do list. I’m going to reline the kitchen silverware drawer with flowered vinyl paper. What is there now celebrated its 45th anniversary last year. I figured it’s time to say good-bye. I want to rearrange the stuff in the drawers of the small hall chest. After that, I might do laundry but that may be a stretch. I still have clean clothes.

I have an appointment with my surgeon on the 29th at the ungodly hour of eight am. When I spoke to his secretary, she had messages. The pins need to stay in longer. He is hoping I’m using my finger and bending it more, but I find when I use my finger it hurts, sort of a dull ache and an occasional zap of bad pain, but I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bear it.

Earlier, the dogs were quiet and not with me. I got suspicious. When I got to the living room, they ran down the stairs. Nala’s tail was wagging, a bad sign. She does that when she has been up to no good. It is her guilt personified. I looked up the stairs and saw the gate was still up so she had been in my room. I decided not to check right now. It is a bit scary.

I went to St. Patrick’s grammar school from first grade to eighth grade. I was in the old school through the fourth grade. In the fifth grade we traveled to a different school in the next town over because there were so many of us we didn’t fit in our school any more. That’s when they built a new school. We then had two schools we always called the new and the old. I have bits of memories of the old school. It had beautiful wooded stairs and you could see from the bottom to the top of the stairs, to the top floor. The bathrooms were in the cellar. The girls’ room had exposed pipes and a funny smell, not gross but strange, maybe an odd clean cleaning fluid. There were wooden toilet doors. My first grade classroom had a cloak room with not enough hooks. My fourth grade class was up the stairs. I remember when the tall windows behind my desk were open I could hear guys playing basketball in the schoolyard.

In the second half of the fifth grade we moved into the new school. I was on the bottom floor next to the windows overlooking the school yard. Everything, as befitting a new school, was shiny and bright, but it lacked a quirkiness, a personality. I liked the new school, but I missed the old school, even the overhead pipes and the smell of the girls’ bathroom in the cellar.

The morning is damp and overcast. It is in the high 50’s and could get warmer. Scattered showers are predicted. I’m just fine sitting home and looking at the world through my den window. My dance card is brittle and yellowed. It has one fading entry, my trip to Hyannis yesterday when I sat with my uke band and sang along.

My housecleaner is here. The dogs love her. They greet her with wagging tails. I’d do the same if I were a dog. She is generous with pats and treats. Last time she was here, Nala stole a box of baking soda from her cleaning supplies. I found it in the yard. Nala also follows her around the house and tries to eat the vacuum. My housecleaner is quite patient.

In Ghana, I had a housecleaner named Thomas. He lived in a room in the courtyard of my house. That courtyard had four sort of rooms: Thomas’ room, the kitchen, the toilet room and the shower room beside it. Thomas washed the floors every day. He dusted the furniture and made my bed. He did my washing. I was spoiled. When I went back to Ghana the first time, my former students tried to find Thomas. They told me he had passed.

I always wonder why people are afraid of spiders. I don’t get it. Even when I was a kid I liked spiders even though they do have a couple of drawbacks. They make webs all around the house. Think Mrs. Haversham. Some spiders bite, but generally house spiders seldom do, but if they happen to, the bite is more akin to a mosquito bite. Because spiders are valuable and devour insects, I don’t kill them. I don’t scream when I see them. If they are in the way, I just move them.

When I was a kid, my mother seldom cooked foods she knew we hated except for carrots. We ate them because we didn’t know we were eating them. We never had broccoli or cauliflower. Corn was big in our house. We all liked it in its varied forms: kernels, creamed and on the cob.

My finger hurts so it is time to stop.

Today is a lovely day with fall warmth and such a bright sun the leaves on the oak tree in the backyard seem to glow. It will be in the high 60’s. I’m going out. My uke club will be playing in Hyannis, and I will be there, in the audience as it will be a while before I’m back playing. I still have those pretty yellow pins and my finger is so swollen it is misshapen. I’m supposed to see the surgeon next week.

When I was a kid, my favorite Sunday dinner was roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes and peas. I always made a well in my potatoes for the gravy. The challenge was not to let the gravy drip beyond the well. I used to scoop up the peas with the potatoes. Before I was leaving for the Peace Corps, my mother asked what I wanted for my dinner. That was easy.

My mother made great brownies. She never used a box mix but made her own. They were always frosted with chocolate icing, and she sprinkled jimmies on the top. I always liked the corners, the crispy part.

I remember Sunday afternoons when we stayed home and didn’t visit my grandparents. We’d hang around the house and sometimes watch TV. I remember seeing Lassie Come Home on the afternoon movie matinee. The TV was angled in the corner, the same corner where we put our Christmas tree. We used to lie on the rug to watch it. My father would read the Sunday paper in the chair by the picture window. He always brought the paper home after church. I’d read the comics.

The Sunday dinner ritual went with me to Ghana. I’d sometimes cook one of the dinners my mother had sent in a package. They were as valuable as gold and used sparingly so they’d last a while. Other Sundays, I’d ride my “moto” to town. On the perimeter of the lorry park were chop bars, places which sold Ghanaian food. They were basically sheds with a table or two and some chairs. The pounding of the fufu and the cooking of the soups took place outside in the back. I was there for takeout. My friend Bill and I would buy a light soup to eat with fufu. We’d attach the bowls we’d brought to the backs of our bikes and hope for the best. They never fell off the back.

It seems I have taken the characteristics of a sloth to a new level. My daily accomplishments are miniscule. The other day I watered my plants. That rated a cheer. Yesterday I put boxes and magazines in the car for my next dump run, cleaned the mouse, the phone and the table and disassembled the smoke alarms while standing on a step ladder. After that I took a nap, my reward for such industry. I wonder what tasks I’ll find to do today.

I heard the rain on the roof when I woke up, and it is still raining. It will rain on and off all day today, but it will be warm, in the 60’s. I didn’t go out yesterday but will today.

My neighbor is here to fix the smoke alarms. He is on the stepladder now. Better him than me. The alarms are electric with battery back-ups. I had two batteries so I need to get one more for the alarm in the cellar. That one is near a wall so I can lean on the wall to keep me upright.

When I was a kid, my play clothes were always comfortable. I wore shorts, sleeveless blouses and sneakers in the summer. In the colder weather I wore dungarees, long sleeved shirts, some of which were flannel, and a winter jacket on the coldest days. I wore my sneakers unless it snowed then I’d wear my boots.

When I was older, I was never really big on fashion. I wore a uniform to school and play clothes after school, same as always. But one Christmas, I got the outfit of my dreams, one that was quite fashionable. I got black ski pants with the loops for your feet and a pink angora sweater. I was styling.

I remember being at my grandparents’ house one Easter Sunday. The whole family was there as usual. That year I was probably around twelve. We, the multitude of grandchildren, were wearing our new Easter clothes. I didn’t wear fancy Easter clothes. Fancy and I were and still are incompatible, mismatched. My Easter outfit was simple, a new skirt, new blouse and a new pair of shoes. All the women, my mother, grandmother and aunts, were, as usual, in the kitchen. I was in the outer room on my way to the kitchen when I heard a discussion about me. The aunts were questioning my choice of Easter clothes. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t dressy. Why the skirt and blouse? My mother defended me,”That’s what she wanted,” was all she said. End of discussion. I didn’t go into the kitchen.

Last night’s rain was spectacular. It pounded the windows and blew trees sideways. The dogs wouldn’t even go out, and they usually don’t mind rain. This morning dawned dark and dank. Everything is soaked, but it has stopped raining.

The dogs and I were rudely awakened by a smoke alarm in the wee hours this morning. The dogs shook, and I jumped out of bed. The irritating beeps seemed to come from the one outside my room, but it was difficult to tell. After a bit, it stopped but then started later and later again. After it beeped a long time, I grabbed a stepladder and disconnected all three of the alarms. One kept beeping though disconnected. I am now left in a quandary. I could pull off the caps, but I can’t get at the innards. I used my stepladder to climb and pull the caps, but the ladder is short and a bit scary, and I am not the best of climbers. My hope is the beeping is at an end. Reconnecting is the next problem, but as Scarlett O’Hara said, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.”

When I was a kid, I had favorite television programs. Every day after school I watched Superman. I still remember the introduction, “Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” I never questioned the disguise of glasses and why Clark wasn’t recognized as Superman. I never realized what a role model Lois actually was. “Great Caesar’s Ghost,” was Perry White’s favorite expletive. My Superman memory drawer is filled. I remember it all.

I also watched the Mickey Mouse Club. I sang along with the introduction. I loved the openings and the closings. l loved Spin and Marty. When I was in college, we were discussing the themes of each day. We couldn’t remember Tuesday so I wrote to the Walt Disney studio. I got a wonderful letter in reply. Tuesday was Guest Star Day.

My finger is getting better. Its aches only part of the time especially when I use it which happens almost automatically, it being my dominant hand. It aches right now. I used it to take off the smoke alarm caps. My other hand I used to balance myself against the wall.

I stopped taking a dance card. Lately I haven’t anything to fill it. Going to Agway or the dump doesn’t count. Today I need a few groceries. That doesn’t count either.

The day is warm and sunny, in the mid 60’s, though rain is predicted. I got up early, unusual for me, but I had an appointment at the hospital to check out pain in my leg. It took a couple of hours. As soon as I got home, I grabbed another cup of coffee and took off my out of the house clothes. I’m back to being cozy and comfortable.

When I was a kid, I followed the campaign of John Kennedy for president. It was the very first time I was interested in politics, and it was because Kennedy was my senator, and he was a Catholic. I read the newspapers and followed the polls. I stopped at his election headquarters uptown for pins which I still have on display. I watched the debates. For some reason I remember the controversy about Quemoy-Matsu. Maybe it was the names of the islands themselves. There is a bit of the lyrical about them. Maybe it was the map showing the islands and their closeness to China. I remember I didn’t really understand the strategy, the politics, of it all as that was the first time I had ever heard of the two islands. It was also the last time.

The day after the election I was thrilled to find John Kennedy had beaten Richard Nixon and would be our next president. I watched the inauguration. I remember odd things about it. Kennedy and Eisenhower wore top hats. I thought they looked Abraham Lincolnish, maybe even a bit silly. I remember Robert Frost reading one of his poems and having difficulty in the sun. I don’t remember the inaugural speech, but I do remember Kennedy’s hands punctuating his words in the air. The “Ask not…” part of his speech was the most quoted. It would be one of the reasons I joined the Peace Corps.

The Peace Corps, early on, was advertised on television as PSA’s commercials. The toughest job you’ll ever love became a Peace Corps slogan. I watched each time one was on knowing, with certainty, I would be going. I was in the eighth grade for the election and was a freshman in high school when I was first interested on the Peace Corps. I remember my father watching the Peace Corps ads and saying,” After four years of college, what a waste of two years. Who would do that?” I sat there saying nothing, but in my head, I was thinking, “I would.”

Growing up, I had two dreams, two promises, I held on to for years. The first I made in the sixth grade when I vowed to travel the world, to out-travel Marty Barrett. The second, to join the Peace Corps, I made in the eighth grade. Both dreams came true years later. How lucky my life has been.

This morning the house was colder than outside. I zapped on the heat for a while so now the house feels warm and cozy. I’m my cooler weather garb, a sweatshirt and my laze around the house light flannel pants in pink with penguins wearing winter knit hats, each with a red pompom.

I changed the dressing on my finger. I took off the makeshift bandage for the one from the doctor. My finger is ugly and still swollen mostly around the knuckle where it was fractured. The stitches wrap around from the bottom of the finger to just above the knuckle. They will make for an interesting scar. The pins are at the bottom of the finger. They are a pretty yellow.

The dogs are out. Nala finds the sun and lies down in the grass. Henry checks the yard, does his business and then comes inside for his bit of morning coffee. To complete their breakfasts this morning, each got a bite of English muffin and a small piece of banana.

On school mornings when I was a kid, breakfast was a hearty meal meant to fortify us for the walk to school and the wait until lunch. My mother made a hot breakfast for us. On the table was always a teapot with the strings of teabags hanging from under the lid. On the stove the water boiled for the cocoa. My brother was tea. I was cocoa. Sometimes we had oatmeal while other mornings we had eggs, always soft-boiled eggs with toast cut for dipping beside the egg cups and around the plates.

When I was working, I mostly just had coffee for breakfast though once in a while I’d stop for a sausage and egg sandwich. I drank coffee all morning.

In Ghana, I always had coffee, eggs fried in groundnut (peanut) oil and toast. All of it was cooked on a small, round charcoal burner. The smell of the burning wood filled the air with a sweetness. It wafted from my backyard and every house on school grounds and every compound outside the fence. That aroma is one of my favorite memories of Ghana.

Today is the perfect fall day. The breeze is slight. The sun glints through the trees still covered in leaves. It is warm at 62°. I don’t hear anything except the birds. It is a deck day, a day for enjoying the best of the season before it is gone. The nights are already cold.

I did a slight yard clean-up this morning. Nala came inside with an empty packet of cat treats in her mouth from her last foray into Jack’s room so I went outside to check. I found trash, empty cans of cat food and empty treat bags. I cleaned it up with my good hand.

When I was kid, the shorter days of autumn meant little time to play outside after school. The street lights came on during the early twilight so we had to go back into the house far sooner than we wanted. We’d turn on the TV and watch until supper. My mother always made us a supper of meat, potatoes and a vegetable. Those were the days she’d hide the mashed carrots in the potatoes. I thought mashed potatoes were sometimes orange. We’d finish eating and then watch more TV. My father seldom made it home from work in time for supper. In my mind’s eye, I can see him coming in the front door framed by darkness, his fedora on his head.

My dance card has yellowed and is brittle. I went out yesterday, but it doesn’t count. It was an errand. I needed milk for my cereal, eggs, cat food and cat treats, and I treated myself to a Snickers bar and each dog to a biscuit in the shape of a fire hydrant which I think neither dog has ever seen so neither understood the significance.

I have nothing planned for today or even the rest of the week. I’ll read, watch a few movies, nap and make something pumpkin.

My house is cold, a lingering cold from last night. I have turned on the heat, but once the house is warm, I’ll turn it off again. The dogs love this weather. They stay outside for the longest time coming in only for a treat, especially Henry, the chow hound.

I still have to change the gauze on my finger. Because my hand was painful yesterday, I decided to wait until today. The new technique will be to unwind the old gauze then wind the new gauze.

When I was a kid, every Sunday, I usually walked to church, but if it was raining, I’d go early with my father who was an usher at the eight o’clock mass upstairs. His job was to walk to the front of the church with his basket, go from row to row to collect the money then count it in the back vestibule of the church. I remember he always smiled at me when he collected my dime.

If I didn’t go with my father, I walked to church. Mostly I went to the mass downstairs because it was shorter than the mass upstairs. There either was no sermon or a very short one. The downstairs pews were old. They made all sorts of creaking sounds when people moved or shifted. They were usually the only sounds, other than the priest, I heard during the mass.

Every Sunday at my school in Ghana there was a service of sorts. My students wore their Sunday clothes. Each class had a separate pattern of Ghanaian cloth for their dresses which were three pieces, a top, skirt and a wraparound cloth. The service was in the cafeteria. Sometimes it was the white father from the Catholic church in town. Other times it was a minister from one of the other churches in town. Once it was me. I was a nervous wreck as sermons were outside my knowledge base. I regretted saying yes to my principal. It took me a while to come up with the theme. I ended up with one of Aesop’s fables. I don’t remember which one I used. I just remember it was a unique take on the Sunday sermon.

The morning is damp. It rained during the night. The sky is a bit cloudy, but the sun is breaking through here and there. It will be a cool day, only in the high 50’s.

When I was a kid, today, a rainy Saturday, would have been a disappointment. Saturday was for roaming, not staying home looking wistfully out the window. With everybody stuck in the house, it was loud and felt filled with people. Saturday TV would have been a bit of a distraction for a while, and I’d have been glad for a book.

I heard something being dragged out the dog door earlier. I was too late to catch her, but I did go out and see Nala had a huge bag from Jack’s room. I ran upstairs, sort of. Yup, she had gotten into Jack’s room, eaten all his food and rummaged through the trash. I fed Jack and readjusted the gate to keep Nala out, maybe, then I went outside and collected the trash, a dangerous proposition as the bannister on the stairs to the yard is on the wrong side, my bad hand side, and the stairs were wet, but I navigated safely up and down.

My dance card is empty by choice. My finger still pains me. I am supposed to change the gauze, and that is a bit scary. I have to snip it off with my left hand then wrap the new gauze around my damaged finger and a bit on the finger beside it. I know there are a couple of pieces of gauze from the surgery stuck to the wound. The doctor left them as they were so painful to remove. He told me to soak the gauze to make it easy to remove. I’d cross my fingers, but that would hurt.

My father always had his food preferences. Garlic belonged only on garlic bread and scampi. Strawberry shortcake had to be made with cream of tartar biscuits, not the spongy stuff. He loved canned green beans and canned asparagus. Meat was always well done. He loved ice cream covered in Hershey’s syrup, not hot fudge. He was a man who loved his chocolate. My mother always bought him Hershey’s miniatures which he kept either on the table beside him in a bowl or hidden under the couch. Milk Crackers were a favorite snack. He’d put raspberry jam on them then carry his plate covered in crackers to the living room, settle in his couch corner, where he always sat, and watch TV. My father was such a creature of habit.