This morning I had a late start then I just took my time with my coffee and newspaper. The dogs are sleeping after their run in the yard in the heat of a beastly morning. It is already 88° with heavy humidity, and the weather won’t get much better all day. The only saving grace is a breeze, a strong breeze, almost a wind at times. The sun comes and goes but mostly comes. My house is cool, but I do need to get out and do a few things or maybe not. I have, of late, been prone to staying in the house. I could start house chores like doing the dreaded laundry, only a single load this time, or washing the kitchen floor covered in dog prints, but I admit I am essentially a sloth.

When I was a kid, Saturdays, in the summer, were unplanned because my father did his weekend chores. He’d bring his shirts, aways white shirts, uptown to the Chinese laundry and pick up last week’s shirts, cleaned and starched. He’d mow the lawn and put out the sprinkler on the side yard, the part of the yard with the most grass. Sometimes we’d go to the drive-in on Saturday nights, always dressed in our pajamas. The first movie, when most kids were still awake, was a family movie. The second movie was for adults, not an adult film, but a film adults would enjoy. I always stayed awake.

When I worked, the weekends always had the same pattern. Saturday was my play day. Sunday was for chores like changing my bed, doing the laundry and going to the dump. On Sunday evenings I’d correct papers and prepare lessons.

My friends and I used to go to the Dennis Drive-In which no longer exists. Other than the entry road, it was circled by trees. We knew the mosquitos were relentless so we slathered our arms and legs with insect repellent. We brought a picnic basket packed with dinner. It was high end movie food: crackers and cheese, a couple of dips, maybe a sandwich or two, chips, candy and mixed drinks in a thermos. Sometimes we sat outside the car to watch the movie. That drive-in was small, almost cozy, and was my favorite drive-in of all time. Even now, when I pass by where it used to be, I’m struck with nostalgia, with a longing of how it used to be.

The heat has me staying inside wearing socks to warm my feet, a small price to pay for a cold house. The temperature is 85° already but with the humidity it feels far warmer. The breeze is strong but does little to cool the air. The sky is cloudy but no rain is predicted.

I have an item on my dance card, a play tonight at the Cape Playhouse, An American in Paris. I haven’t seen this play before as it has never been staged at the Playhouse, but I have seen the movie and even know some of the songs. I’ll go from a cold house to a cold car to a cold theater. Such is summer life.

When I was a kid, we sort of all dressed the same in the summer. We wore shorts, sneakers and a blouse, sometimes a sleeveless blouse. My sneakers were aways white with pointed toes though by the end of the summer they were a bit dirty and well-worn. The younger I was the less I cared about keeping my sneakers white.

When I was in high school, I hung around most of the time. I’d sit inside or outside and read during the day. At night, I had drill practice twice a week and competitions on the weekends. On other nights, we’d sometimes play miniature golf, go to a drive-in or even bowl. I was a horrible bowler. Many balls made their way down the gutters, nowhere near the pins. My score was always an embarrassment. Being a good bowler is not an inherited trait. My mother bowled in a league. She was a good bowler.

My friend and I used to camp in the backyard. We’d lay a tarp on the ground, bring out pillows and spend the whole night outside. I loved to lie on my back and look at the stars which covered the sky. The nights were so bright with star-light there were shadows around us. I remember the long, skinny shadows of the trees and how one side of the house was a giant shadow on the ground. The front of the house and the sidewalk were lit by streetlights. In the road were the circles of light from the street light cutting through the darkness. The nights were alive with the sounds of insects, night birds and barking dogs. I was never afraid. I slept soundly the whole night.

Today will be hot, in the high 80’s. I am already behind closed doors with the AC cranking. The dogs are sprawled on the couch having their morning naps. Outside my window, the day, despite the heat, looks inviting with a blue sky and a bit of a breeze. My dance card is empty today, but I do need dog food. I’m thinking delivery.

When I was a kid, the future was tomorrow, but I did have dreams for when I was older. I knew I’d travel. That was a given after I had seen the first pictures in my geography book. I saw crops growing, snow covered mountains and houses, none of which resembled at all where I lived. I didn’t know anyone who had the same dreams I did. Travel meant New Hampshire or Maine or even as far as Vermont. We did make it to Canada and the falls. In my head, I started the list of countries I had visited, but that list didn’t get any longer than Canada for years, but I still dreamed of where I’d go.

For my college graduation my parents gave me a trip to Europe, one of those nine hundred countries in three days sort of trip. I was going to go with college friends. I didn’t; instead, I was going to Africa. My mother and I shopped from a list sent to us by Peace Corps. I was limited to eighty pounds of luggage. We bought enough underwear to outfit a chorus line. We bought dresses for a warm climate. One of them was purple, and I’m wearing it in several pictures. I also had skirts and short-sleeved tops. We bought sandals, leather sandals which didn’t do all that well in the heat of Ghana. The soles went first. We bought necessities like deodorant. We found a brand supposedly good for days with just an underarm swipe. It gave me boils which were really painful. I couldn’t raise my arm high enough to write on the chalkboard. The boils finally disappeared as did the deodorant. I tossed it. Some of the stuff we bought were found in Ghana like toothpaste, soap and tooth brushes.

My entire wardrobe after a time was made with Ghanaian cloth and sewn by a neighbor, a seamstress. I packed the purple dress away. It didn’t fit anymore, too big. It was the same with the other clothes I had brought, especially the underwear which got too big and wouldn’t stay up. I didn’t buy new underwear. It seemed a waste of money. I used a thin string belt to keep embarrassment away.

After Ghana, I still traveled. One summer I went from Venezuela to Rio. The trip took the whole summer. I saw my geography book come to life.

The list in my head of countries I have visited is a long one now with Canada still at the top. The order is chronological. Ghana is second on that list.

The weather is hot again. I am hiding behind closed doors with the AC blasting. The high will be 83°, and the added humidity will make it a miserable day. Yesterday we had spitting rain as my mother called it. I even had to use my wipers for a while, for a short while. The concert went on last night and the audience, under umbrellas, even sang along. The traffic, though, was horrific, worse than usual. It took me double time to get there. I cursed the two cars which cut me off, the car in front of me going 25 in a 40 zone, the two drivers who thought a left only arrow meant going straight and the car in the parking lot which tried to pass me on the right as I was parking. Staying inside seems the safest option.

If there was a medal for finishing household chores, I’d deserve one with a cluster. Those three loads of laundry including Christmas shirts, the ages of which were determined by carbon-14 dating, are put away. Yesterday, I filled my trunk with bags of trash and went to the dump. Some of the bags were so heavy I had to drag them to the car. I changed my bed and swept the kitchen floor, but despite this cleaning frenzy, I was able to ignore the paw prints on that floor. I saved them for another day, lucky me. I did a small bit of shopping after the concert. After I got home, I did nothing. I deserved it.

I still need two plants to replace the ones Nala stole from their pots, but I need to figure out how to protect them from her nefarious ways. She has also dug huge holes in the yard. I don’t go into the yard at night when I’m likely to step in one of those holes and break an ankle.

When I was a kid, I never minded days like today. Summer was hot, and there was nothing I could do about it except ignore it. My brother and I, despite the heat, used to walk to the zoo and stay all day. We brought our lunches. During one of our visits, we met one of the men who took care of the animals. He let us help. We used to go behind the cages and feed the small animals. I remember carrying bowls of cabbage, carrots and potatoes. We took turns. One of us would open the cage while the other fed the animals. That zoo back then had some wonderful animals like an elephant, sea lions and a giraffe. We got to feed the elephant, even to going into its exhibit. That was amazing. I have never forgotten the joy of getting up close to an elephant, to that most magnificent animal.

Today will be hot again with a high of 80°. Right now it is cloudy, dark, and breezy, even windy. I can feel the humidity rising though rain is not predicted.

This morning I am a question mark. My back is quite painful. I know why. The laundry is done. All three loads were washed, dried and hauled up two flights of stairs. I’m thinking the sore back is a warning that I should use the example of the Mad Hatter and just leave the laundry, move on and buy more. I even have a top hat I can wear.

I have a concert tonight in Hyannis. I hope my back will be okay by then.

My sister and I were talking about doing laundry, a scintillating topic. Our mother always did the laundry. I didn’t even know how to use the washing machine. When I was a freshman in college, I did my wash by myself for the first time. Yes, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that. Anyway, moving on, I was in the middle of that agonizing process when the machine stopped and buzzed. I had no idea what was wrong. The clothes were soaking wet. I wrung them out by hand then threw them in the dryer. Later, I learned the wash was uneven in the tub and should have been rearranged. I don’t know why it didn’t come with directions.

When I was a kid, I had favorite foods. Hot dogs in a toasted roll topped the list. Hamburgers were right up there and if I added cheese, they became sublime. Peas and mashed potatoes were my favorite veggies. I didn’t have a favorite fruit. I ate them all.

It wasn’t until I went to Ghana that my palate expanded. Buying foreign foods was out of my budget so I ate what could be found in the market. Most days my meals were the same. Breakfast was eggs, toast and coffee. Lunch was cut up fruit: oranges, bananas, mango and pawpaw. I had never seen the last two before Ghana. I loved pawpaw (papaya) right away, but the mango took a little more time. Dinner was usually sliced beef in a sauce with tomatoes and with yams on the side, usually mashed. The sauce tenderized the beef as it boiled. Sometimes I had chicken, even my own chickens. I had no attachment to them. They were eggs for breakfast and meat for dinner. Sometimes I had plantain and garden eggs as part of dinner. I love plantain.

I need dry dog food, batteries, something sweet and something salty. I’m thinking delivery.

This morning is spectacular, even a bit cooler than it has been. It is so very quiet I don’t even hear the dogs from the yard. The air is mostly still though every now and then only the thinnest, smallest branches are moved and their leaves flutter. Today, the high will be 82°. I’m thinking it is perfect deck weather. I do have an errand, the dump, and I also have to replace flowers from two pots decimated by Nala, one from last week and the other from yesterday. When I went outside on the deck yesterday afternoon, Nala had pulled the flowers from the wooden bear my friend Bill had made. The deck, near the bear, was covered in dirt and strewn pieces of flower. I’ll never figure out Nala’s timetable. Those flowers sat in the pot in the bear for a couple of months. Why yesterday? Was she bored?

I have started my laundry. I had to climb mounds of it to get to the machine. The Sherpas and I stopped at base camp for a bit of a rest and a banana. The laundry had been on lists of mine for so long the lists had yellowed and become brittle.

When I visited Russia, I went to the Moscow State Historical Museum in Red Square. We were given covers for our shoes. At the time we thought that was probably a mistake because we slid, on purpose, across the floors as if on a pond of ice and challenged each other for distance. Thinking about that later we realized we were actually polishing the floors. Those crafty Russians!

When I traveled, I took trains when I could. Ghana had a wonderful train system, and I used to take the train from Accra to Kumasi, always first class which was inexpensive. I sat on soft chairs in a compartment usually by myself. I felt like a character in an Agatha Christie novel. One time I took a sleeper from Kumasi to Takoradi. I was in my own compartment which had a sort of bed, a huge window and a sink. At every station, Ghanaians looked through my window and tried to sell me mostly food stuffs. I usually bought bofrot from small girls. They carried the round, fried bread dough in wooden containers with glass panes. I could never resist. They were my favorite snack. I remember going to bed early on that trip, and I remember being awakened hours later when I fell out of bed. The train had derailed. That was my favorite train trip.

The morning is lovely. It is still cool in the house from last night. The blue sky stretches across without a single cloud. The sun is bright. Nothing is moving. The day will be hot, in the 80’s. I have no errands or chores to do. I have been busy. The deck flowers are all planted and the deck is clean of debris. I declare today a well-deserved sloth day. I’m thinking I’ll just stay on the deck and read the day away.

When I was a kid, I had everything I needed. For winter I had ice skates and a sled. For summer I had roller skates, the kind you tightened to your shoes, and my bike. The ice skates were easy, just put them on, tighten and skate, but my roller skates sometimes came loose, usually only one at a time, so I had to keep lifting my foot and the skate until I could sit, usually on the curb, and reattach the skate. I learned sneakers didn’t hold the skates too well so I wore my old school shoes. I used to skate on the parking lot at the top of the hill, but if I was brave, I’d ride down the hilly sidewalk. Grass bordered the sidewalk on both sides so when I fell, and fell I did, the grass cushioned my fall.

When I moved into my house, my mother brought down some treasures for me. One was a small chair my father’s uncle had made for me. My mother told me I was three when he gave it to me. It is still in my bedroom. I have three Fanny Farmer chicken egg cups, two have broken beaks. My mother used to make soft-boiled eggs for our breakfasts. She’d toast bread and cut it so the pieces were just the right size to dip into the eggs cradled in those egg cups. She also brought down my books: my Bobbsey Twins, my Trixie Beltons, my Nancy Drews and some of the classics I loved to read like Heidi, Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and my all time favorite, The Wind in the Willows. I bought a bookcase and filled it with those treasures. That’s when my house became my home.

The morning is hot, 84˚, already. I was on the deck for a short while but decided I preferred the cool house. The dogs came inside with me. They are lolling on the couch napping. I am watching a really bad science fiction movie. Aliens have arrived. Let’s shoot them down. Their spaceships which have traveled across the broad expense of the universe will be no match for our bombs.

I haven’t a list for today. I have an item. All the hauling, carrying and planting of the last few days has my back complaining so I’ll just water my outside plants and then call it a day.

When I was a kid, the summer seemed endless. Every day was mine to do anything I wanted. I never stayed home. Some days I was at the park. Other days I hiked to the zoo and spent the whole day. The pool was a long way from my house, but it didn’t matter. I walked there and back. My bike transported me anywhere I wanted to go, close or faraway. The furthest I ever rode was to East Boston to visit my grandparents. They were surprised when my brother and I showed up. My grandfather called my mother. I could hear her scream. We left immediately.

Since I was little, I have been a science fiction fan. I read all the science fiction books my library had to offer. All these years later, I still remember where those books were. They were on shelves behind the librarian’s desk in a tall bookcase. Most were about space travel. I don’t remember reading about aliens. They came later.

I watched every science fiction black and white movie from the 50’s I could find. That’s when the aliens appeared. Few were friendly. Most wanted Earth. I know now they had few specials effects, but it didn’t matter back then. It doesn’t even matter now. I still love those movies.

I was in Ghana for the moon landing. It was during training when we were living with our Ghanaian families. Every day we, my language group and our language instructor, met for lunch and a Hausa lesson. That day we knew to turn on the radio to listen to Voice of America’s broadcast of the moon landing. We heard it all. We heard Neil Armstrong announce his big step. Even from the radio it was exciting. We cheered.

Some mornings seem to rise to near perfection. This morning is one of them. I am on the deck with the dogs. They are lying down in the cool air. A strong breeze is blowing. The branches are whipping back and forth. The oak leaves are rustling. Falling acorns are hitting the deck. Joni Mitchell is providing the soundtrack. I’ve already had my coffee and read the newspaper. My plans for the day are to finish the deck plantings, sweep my outside shower and put up a few more deck decorations. We might get rain, might being the key word.

Miss Nala is continuing her nefarious ways. Yesterday she stole some folded cardboard from the recycle bin and my deck chair pillow. I was only gone a few minutes into the house. When back on the deck, I immediately noticed the missing pillow. I checked the yard and could see Nala running with her prize in her mouth. I didn’t chase her. I stood and watched. I did try to grab it when she got close to me, but I failed each time. Finally I threw a rock which distracted her, and I retrieved my pillow, a new pillow, a filthy new pillow. I washed it and left it to dry. I’m using it again. When I went into the house a bit ago, I took the pillow with me.

I can occasionally hear planes overhead. I wonder where they’re going. When we left the United States for Ghana, we left from Philadelphia. We flew over the cape. It was an unexpected good-bye.

I have a picture of the inside of the bus taking us to the airport. I didn’t yet know most of the people in that picture, but we were to spend three months training together and two years living in Ghana, plenty of time to get know each other. Now, when I look at that picture, I can remember many of them. Standing in the back is Kalman. He will be the victim along with his Ghanaian passenger of a motorcycle accident. Sitting close to me is Emma. She will be assigned with me to the same school. We will never become friends. She will leave after the first year to maybe a different school or even home. She didn’t tell me she was leaving. I never saw Emma again. Roger and Dale are in seats near each other. They will be roommates in Navrongo, a town north of Bolga. They used to come visit so I could cut their hair. They were good guys, nice guys, perfectly matched. I don’t remember the names of the other passengers, but I have what we call the mug book which is filled with pictures of the whole training group. Underneath each picture is a snippet of information about each of us. Bill, Peg and I use the mug book to put faces to names. It is invaluable, even precious.

The weather has changed. The humidity is just about gone. The temperature is in the low 80’s and tonight will get downright chilly, 72˚. I’m out on the deck. The slight breeze is pleasant. Henry is with me. Nala is chasing her ball all over the yard. She makes pit stops on the deck for water. I have house chores today. Plants inside and out need watering. The laundry is down the cellar in front of the machine. I really need to do a load or two today before it overwhelms me, and I become a statistic in some Stephen King short story.

I have a list. I always have a list. Today’s list is for a few groceries and some basil plants as I still need to fill a couple of clay pots. My white lights were eaten. I have more which I will mist with the anti-spawn of Satan spray. I need seed for my bird feeders.

It’s plumber time again. My kitchen faucet needs to be replaced, and an outside spigot where the hose is attached leaks. I used to kept that hose on the deck for watering the plants so I didn’t have to make trips, three of them, in and out of the house to fill the watering can.

The missing H on my keyboard is driving me crazy. I need to call to have the computer guy come to my house. I never realized how often I use an H.

Last night’s concert went well despite the wind. We even had a small audience, mostly friends or relatives, but it was an audience nonetheless. Tonight is practice on a new book, the fab 50’s.

When I was a kid, I took piano lessons for a short time. It was during the school day, and a nun was my teacher. One end of the convent across the street from the school had a stone front and its own door. That’s where my lessons were. My grandparents had a piano. Neither of them played. I think it was some sort of a status symbol. I went to their house to practice, but I could tell my grandmother was not all that keen to have me there so I stopped practicing and stopped my lessons. My one musical triumph was playing the sticks in the rhythm band when I was in the second grade. The audience loved me.

I grew up in really noisy neighborhood. Little kids were everywhere. They mostly played in the backyard. A giant grassy hill was between the upper duplexes and the lower where we lived. Behind each duplex, up and down, were the areas with the clothes lines. We had three lines and our neighbors on the other side of the wall also had three. I remember my mother hanging up the wash. She had a clothespin bag hanging from one of the lines. She kept one clothespin in her hand, the operative one, and another in her mouth, the next one. She seemed to do a wash just about every day.

All I hear are birds singing and Nala rustling through the flora in the backyard. Her tags click, my way of keeping track of her, a necessity as she can be devious.

I saw a rainbow on my ceiling when I woke up.