The wind came first then the rain started around 1:30 this morning. I heard it starting, but I was sleeping when it stopped. The morning is dark. The air is thick and humid. The birds are loud. The neighborhood is quiet.

I love mornings like this. The house surrounds me and protects me from the darkness and the rain. Henry feels safe and sleeps soundly. Nala sleeps in a ball on the couch. I have to step over Henry on the hall floor. He doesn’t even notice me.

Nala is studying the local flora. I’m finding thin branches on the floor and on the rugs surrounded by chewed, small pieces of the branch, formerly parts of the whole. Oak leaves were in the hall and the living room. Some were still on small branches. Nala pulls them through the dog door. I don’t notice her because I don’t monitor the comings and goings of the dogs except at night if they are out a long time. That is never a good sign.

Today is not a day to be out and about. This is July 4th weekend, the unofficial start of summer. The cape is filled with cars. Today, on a rainy day, all those people in all those cars will be looking for something to do. To many, a ride sounds appealing. I can see myself hitting the steering wheel with my fists because the car in front of me is going all of 15 or 20 in a 40 zone. I can see the passenger in the front seat pointing out stuff for the driver to see. The driver slows to gawk then moves a bit before he slows again and gawks again. Meanwhile, the kids are fighting in the back seat. I will stay home today. Let the gawking begin!

I have always written lists of sorts even when I was a kid. When I was working and had little time, I usually wrote to-do lists and completed every item on those lists every week. Now, with all the time in the world, I never finish all the items on any of my lists. I do get close, and I tell myself close counts. I wish I believed it. I thought about leaving lists in the past, but I can’t. They are part of my psyche.

The morning is already warm, but an every now and then wind is helping cool the air. From out my den window, I can watch the tallest branches on the tallest oak trees in the backyard swinging back and forth in the wind, but then the wind dies and everything is still, and the air feels hot in the sun. But the wind, above all else, is persistent. When it reappears, everything moves, everything sways and everything swings.

Of late, I have been tired. First was the leg and foot, 5 weeks ago, and even now the top of my foot still hurts at night but only in the smallest spot. The cold popped in next. I had sloth days of napping and resting on the couch. That worked. The only remaining cold symptom is the cough which periodically rears its ugly head. I want a sign I can carry which says I have tested three times-no Covid. It is only a cough. That almost sounds like the title for a country song.

One of Egypt’s plagues has been visited upon me, the fourth plague. When I opened the car door on Wednesday morning, flies flew out the door. More flies were in the backseat and in the trunk when I opened it to check. This morning I opened the car door again and a swarm flew out, still part of that fourth plague. I left all the windows open hoping the flies will leave for sunnier climes, but I’m not that optimistic. I watched a fly this morning walk under one window then another without finding the route to freedom. Maybe I’ll make signs.

Today is a delight. It is a wonderful 75˚ with a cooling breeze which, at times, fancies itself a wind. I’m going out. I have a few errands today. I’m glad for that.

My coffee this morning is delicious. It is my first taste of Nicaraguan coffee. The bag came in the mail yesterday. I remember when coffee used to come in one pound bags. Even now I say I have to pick up a pound of coffee. It sounds better than I have to pick up 12 ounces of coffee.

I don’t remember when I started drinking coffee. I know I drank it every morning in college. I used to meet my friends in the canteen every day. We’d read the paper then do the crossword puzzle in a highly competitive competition. Usually there were three or four of us with our papers spread out on the table in front of us. I think we usually finished the puzzle. There were enough of us working on it.

In Ghana, I drank NESCAFÉ Classic instant coffee. It came in a tin with a brown label. I used evaporated milk in my coffee. It also came in a tin. That one had a red and white label. Ghana had no fresh milk back then. At first, I wasn’t a fan of morning coffee in Ghana. I drank a cup or two out of habit or maybe need, and during training I ate or drank whatever they served. When I got to my own house, I still drank the instant coffee because that’s all they had, but by then, after three months in Ghana, I had stopped noticing the taste. It was just coffee to me, morning coffee, my usual two cups, with a bit of milk from a can.

My father was the coffee drinker. My mother didn’t usually have a hot beverage in the morning unless she had biscotti and needed coffee for dunking. When she visited, I always had biscotti for her. One of my sisters drinks tea, the other coffee. We are an eclectic bunch.

The rain finally fell around 1 AM last night. It had a slow start, a drop by drop start, then the drops got fierce, bigger and louder. I could hear the rain hitting the door and windows. That got me up. I shut the windows.

The morning is glorious. It is only 66˚ but the sun is working its magic, and today’s high should be around 75˚. The dogs have been in and out all morning. Henry is currently in and barking at my neighbor across the street as if he’d never seen the neighbor before this morning. Henry does that. He warns me about both the familiar and the unfamiliar.

My cold is just about gone. I had no coughing or hacking this morning, but my voice is still a bit hoarse. I think my sloth day, yesterday, helped. Today I’m taking it easy again. I may even take a nap. I should drink tea. My mother always gave me tea when I was sick.

I don’t get sick much now, haven’t in a long time. This cold was quite the surprise. I had shots this year: covid and boosters, flu, pneumonia, shingles and tetanus. The last time I had so many shots was during Peace Corps training in Ghana.

During the first week of training, in Winneba, Ghana, we had a full group lecture about the various illnesses and diseases we could catch in Ghana. There was a huge color-coded map of Ghana in the front of the room, the colors represented diseases endemic to the specific areas. Where I was going had every color, every disease, every illness, but I figured Peace Corps would protect us with shots and all, and I really wanted to live in the Upper Region so I think I just shrugged. In the course of the next two years I had a case of cholera caught while I was in Niger, a bit of dysentery from eating bad market food and nothing else of any note. During the dry seasons I stopped taking my anti-malarial pills, a huge Peace Corps no-no, but during the dry season there were no bugs, no mosquitos and no malaria. I was protected from just about everything: yellow fever, malaria (during the rainy season I took my pills), rabies, typhoid, paratyphoid, tetanus, diphtheria, polio and hepatitis. Shot day was part of training. I got a fever. Cholera shots were later after cholera had broken out. I had two shots, but I got cholera anyway. It was mild. Mostly for those two years, I was really healthy. Getting sick was always a surprise, never an expectation.

When I woke up, we had sun then we didn’t. Now we have sun again, but I don’t know for how long as scattered showers are predicted. It is warm at 75˚, but the breeze, coming from the south, is cooling. It reminds me to put the screen in the back door which has that southern view from which all great breezes blow.

I have a summer cold. I hate summer colds. Even the name is an oxymoron. I’m coughing and sniffling. Of course, the first thing I did was test for Covid. I think a lot of people do. Nope, I don’t have Covid. I even tested twice over the course of a few days. I have a simple cold though there is really nothing simple about this cold.

When I was a kid, the world was a safe place. My mother never worried. On most summer days, I’d leave in the morning and get home in time for dinner. If asked where I’d been, I’d say around because that’s where I was. I had no destination. I just rode around. I’d stop if I saw something worthy of a stop. I’d walk my bike if I went uptown. I’d stop for lunch at my favorite spot, a bench on the town hall green. My last stop was often the library. I’d put the books in my front wire basket where they’d bounce in the air and sometimes even fall out if I went fast over a bump. Yes, I admit I had to stop to pick up books a few times which was annoying so I made the library the last stop before home. It was mostly a straight-away ride home, and the books were safe.

I never worried much when I was a kid. I was a busy kid. I loved school. I loved learning, and I was good at it. I had a bike for spring, summer and fall and a sled for winter. I had friends, some of whom I still have now. I had pretty much everything I needed. Being a kid back then was easy.

This summer I will celebrate eighteen years of retirement. I have enjoyed myself. Every day is Saturday.

The morning is already hot at 78˚ and the temperature will rise until it hits the low 80’s, the hottest day in a while, but after tomorrow we’ll go back to lovely days with temperatures in the 70’s. This has been the most beautiful spring.

My ice maker still doesn’t make ice. The repair man didn’t appear yesterday, but he did call, unlike the no-show repair man on Wednesday. The new appointment is Tuesday, the third one so far. My faucet still needs to be replaced. I’ll put it on the list for next week. I need deck flowers before the summer passes. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit about the passing, but it feels that way so I intend to shop for my flowers today. I swear. It is the only item in my list.

In my mind’s eye, when I think of summers when I was a kid, I see tall trees with their branches covered in leaves. I knew all the trees by the shapes of their leaves. I once had to learn them for a Girl Scout badge. I sometimes collected the leaves for a wax paper album of leaves, especially in the fall.

I can still recall the smells of my childhood. I remember the smell of the chlorine getting stronger as we got closer to the MDC pool at the other end of town. It was always a strong smell that seemed to permeate inside, outside and around. After I changed into my clothes, I could still smell it on my skin even though I had taken a shower.

Each store uptown either had its own smell or no smell like in the bank and the jewelry store. The fish market had a smell that was sometimes the ocean and other times fishy, too fishy, but I always stopped even though I also think I grimaced every time. The shoe store store smelled like leather, like the pile of shoes on the counter. The bakery smelled of freshly baked bread. It was the best smell in the square.

Sometimes I’d get a piece of cheddar from the wheel in front of Kennedy’s. They’d cut it if you asked for a taste. Maybe that’s where my love of cheddar started.

I have always counted myself lucky. I grew up at a time when I was free to come and go. My bicycle and I could travel all over my town and the towns around us. My mother didn’t worry. I was the first in my family to go to college, but it was expected I would. We never talked about it, but we all knew I’d go. I mean, really, why else would I have taken four years of Latin? I got into the Peace Corps, my first after college choice. I lived in Africa for two years, in Africa, the most amazing place. My career here began at Dennis-Yarmouth and ended there 33 years later when I retired. I loved my job, even during the hard times. I loved my kids all the time. I always felt lucky I had chosen the right path for me, the right job.

I love both the slow days and the busy days of my life now. Busy days get me out of the house. In the summer, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are those days, all ukulele days. On Thursday, I take a sloth day, a well earned sloth day. Some Fridays, every other one, I have a play to see at the Dennis Playhouse so every other week is a really busy week. I thought I would mind the busy week, loving sloth days as I do, but I don’t. I remember how quiet last winter was when I had uke on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and nothing on any other days except a show or two near Christmas. Balancing busy now, busy summer, with quiet winter seems right.

I really do feel lucky, backwards and forwards.

Today is another perfect day. The air is still. The sun is bright and warm. It is in the low 70’s. Tomorrow the weather changes. It will be hot at 81˙. I’m already planning to be deck bound with a cold drink, a good book and maybe some cheese and crackers, staples in my house. I think I saw some cheddar.

When I was a kid, my mother always bought the orange cheese, the American cheese. I remember each slice of cheese was a perfect square, perfect for sandwiches. I don’t remember the taste. I do remember each slice of cheese had the imprint of the paper it was wrapped in on it, similar to the canned cranberry sauce and its ridges, but on the cheese, the imprint looked like a wrinkle or a seam on the earth from an earthquake, a dramatic interpretation.

Ghana had no cheese so I don’t think it was until after Peace Corps when my cheese palate expanded exponentially. Out was orange American. In was cheddar. A flood of other cheeses followed (I am using flood as the group name here. I like it.). Even now I’ll try a new cheese. There is a great cheese selection at my store. I always check it out. I always buy some cheese. I never want to run out.

I think cheddar is the main cheese always in my fridge. When I have company, I usually serve at least 3 cheeses on a charcuterie plate, my new appetizer. The plate is fun to make.

When we traveled, my mother, my father and I, my mother always packed snacks. Late in the afternoon, after a day of walking, touring some city, we’d go back to the hotel. My father and I would play cribbage. My mother would make each of them a drink from the nips she had packed. I’d order a Diet Coke. My mother did crossword puzzles from the book she had brought while my dad and I played. After a while, she’d bring out the snacks. She’d packed those little packages with bread sticks and spreadable cheese, Velveeta I suspect, and crackers with peanut butter. Sometimes she’d even pack M&M’s. These were the perfect snacks. They reminded me of when I was a kid. They also tasted good, especially the M&M’s (I do love chocolate.). Those snacks held us together until dinnertime when the three of us would walk to a restaurant close by we had noticed and wanted to try.

My mother always brought those snacks. What gave me a smile was when’d bring out the orange cheese with the bread sticks. The cheese was in a square container. The whole scene was a throwback to that American cheese in the wrapper. The only difference was this cheese was soft for dipping. It looked the same and tasted the same. I think I ate all those snack crackers. I was able to lighten my mother’s load.

I still sometimes buy Velveeta. Nothing melts like it or sticks to a tortilla chip in the same way.

Today is a perfect day. It is warm at 72˚and will get warmer. The sun will shine all day. The breeze is strong. I can hear the leaves blowing back and forth. The dogs are in and out the dog door, but it is just about time for their morning naps.

My dance card is empty, and I am glad for the day of rest as I have been out every day this week. I even went to the dump on what was the busiest dump day I have ever seen. That was yesterday. There were lines of cars waiting to get into other lines of cars. I had a trunkful, and a very kind man hauled my bags out of the trunk to the dumpster.

When I was a kid, I was busy all summer. Most weekdays I went to the playground on the field at the foot of my street. I played softball against other playgrounds, played checkers and horseshoes, learned to play tennis and did all sorts of crafts. I used to buy gimp. I made bracelets, lanyards, key chains and even anklets. I first learned the box stitch then the rest. I remember I made a bracelet with the flat stitch. Many years later, my mother put a lanyard kit in my stocking. It had two colors of gimp. My fingers remembered it all. They made short shrift of that kit.

I have always had books. My mother told me she used to sit with me on her lap while she pointed to the animals on the backs of the Golden Books. I knew all of them. She said my favorite book back then was Chicken Little. I loved the rhyming names of the animals like Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy. It was also my first science fiction novel of sorts. My first chapter books were the Bobbsey Twins. I read the classics, the girl detectives, the Hardy Boys, travel books, the backs of cereal boxes and the bulletin when I was at mass. When I was older, I traveled with books. They were a currency which could be traded. I brought The Autobiography of Malcolm X with me to PC training in Ghana and finished the book quickly so I traded it in what became known as the first of the great trades.

Today is another delight. The air is clear. The sun is bright. The wind is strong and cooling. It is 70˚, near perfection. Today the Summer Solstice, mid-summer, started at 5:13 this morning. Today is the longest day of the year which means it has the shortest night. Today we celebrate summer, a magical time.

When I was a kid, the field below my house was filled with fireflies. They lit up the night. It was like watching a light show, a haphazard show of a light here then here again then gone across the field. I used to sit on the tiny dirt hill behind the houses and watch the fireflies. The field delighted me. I believed it was magical.

When I saw Stonehenge, I had to walk the two miles from Amesbury having missed the bus. I remember standing on a bit of a hill and getting my first look at Stonehenge off in the distance. It looked grey and small surrounded on three sides by a huge field, but the closer we got, the bigger it got. The size of the monument was overwhelming. There were no barriers to the stones. I could walk the perimeter and see the patterns of the stones and imagine what was missing. I touched a stone and wondered about its history and its connection to the Summer Solstice. I always believed in the Druids. I believed it was magical.

Bonfires used to be lit to welcome Midsummer. It was believed the heat of the fires would help guarantee a good harvest. Also, it was believed that bonfires could help banish evil spirits. I remember bonfires on the beach, in the sand, in holes we’d dug. The flames lit up the night. They jumped from one dry driftwood piece to another. I remember the sky behind the beach was filled with stars. It was magical.

During the summer solstice, magic is thought to be at its strongest. Since the fireflies, I always have believed in magic this time of year. I could see it with my eyes. I could touch it. I love the Summer Solstice, the wearing of flowers and herbs to ward off evil spirits, herbs like rosemary which I always plant in the deck boxes. Coincidence? Maybe! Maybe not!

The day started all wrong. I had no newspaper. I hunted under the car, in the flower bed and along the driveway. No paper. Stolen? Maybe. My newspaper, my Globe, is always there. Perhaps a passing runner or dog walker decided to start the day with coffee and a newspaper. That’s how I usually start my day.

My leg is so much better. It hurts mostly in the evening. The top of the foot and the bottom of the leg are still swollen. That’s where the pain is. I’m tired of this.

Nala stole my new package of paper towels. It was unopened on the floor in the living room near the door. I went looking for it yesterday. I found it on the deck and in the yard, torn pieces all over the place. I cleaned the deck. Today I’ll tackle the yard. This morning Nala grabbed my sandal from the rug by the door on her way to going out for the first time of the morning. She looked at me with it in her mouth. I told her to drop it. She didn’t. Nor did she drop it at my second request. She went to the door where the inevitable dawned. She was not getting out with the sandal so she dropped it. I’m wearing it now. That dog is brazen and funny.

When I was a kid, we did the White Mountains, a one day tour. I remember my father driving up Mt. Washington. I found the trip both scary and thrilling. The road was narrow, just big enough for the two cars with a bit of space between them. I remember how cold it was at the top and that there was snow, a couple of piles of it. On that trip we also saw the Old Man in the Mountain. We went by it in the car. My father slowed down, and we looked out the window. Another spot where we stopped was the Flume Gorge. We got the last bus of the day. I remember walking back to the car.

I remember my first weekend in Accra, the capital of Ghana. We were still in training and were in Koforidua. It is 83km between the two cities, about 50 or so miles. I hitchhiked to Accra with a couple of friends. We got one ride all the way. We stayed at the hostel, the best 50 pesewas I ever spent and would ever continue to spend over the next two years. I remember going to the museum and walking to different monuments. I ate at a restaurant. We rambled that first weekend. We saw as much as we could before heading back to Koforidua and the rest of training. That weekend was the beginning of my love affair with Accra, still very much an old city back then. I loved to wander the streets and markets. I never had a plan except for maybe a movie one night. That was a big city event.