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.

The sky is cloudy, and the leaves on the oak trees are swaying, blown by the strong wind. It will be cooler today and tonight, but the air is so humid the outside back door windows are wet. The dogs come in panting after only a short time in the yard. I do have to go out today to the dump and to the store for a few groceries. I have a concert tonight on the Hyannis Green if it doesn’t rain, but I expect it won’t. We haven’t had rain in weeks.

When I was a kid, summer rain showers meant running outside getting wet. I’d walk in the gutter and kick the water left and right as I walked. I’d get soaked, so soaked my sneakers bubbled at the toes. My hair dripped down my face. I’d stand on the lawn with my arms spread to the sky, and I’d feel a sort of freedom standing there getting soaked. I became a lover of rain.

I turned the AC off and opened my back door. The dogs can come and go. The chimes hanging from one of the tree branches sweeten the air when the wind blows. The whirly gigs spin so quickly they almost seem to be part of a moving picture. I am a lover of wind.

When I was growing up, I wondered what it was like to be old, old like my grandparents. I now know the answer. You don’t feel old, but you do recognize age brings changes. It is not like you have a choice. I have a few infirmities, but most, other than my back, are minor and merely inconveniences. Stuff in my head, stuff like names and places, take longer to retrieve. I really do forget why I am in the kitchen sometimes. I walk back to the den and remember then I go back to the kitchen. At least I am getting a bit of exercise.

I love BLT sandwiches. Use home grown tomatoes and add some avocado, and they elevate the simple BLT to rarified air, to the upper echelons of sandwiches.

I’m a pasta fan but not so much a spaghetti fan. I love the different shaped pastas. Often I make a marinara sauce and freeze it in individual bags. I also love pasta with a bit of butter and garlic. Don’t get me started on Alfredo sauce. I’d wax poetically about each morsel.

This morning I had only two cups of coffee, but now I’m hungry. It’s time to defrost that marinara sauce.

The morning is cloudy. A cooling breeze comes and goes, but the heat continues, and the day will get as high as 87˚. A couple of plants need to be potted, but that’s it for my to-do list. The heat makes me loll.

When I was in the sixth grade, one of my classmates had a grandmother who lived in England. He went to visit her every few years. I oozed jealousy. Never did I imagine I could see the world, but I wished I would. My family, including all the aunts and uncles, didn’t travel overseas for pleasure. My father saw Europe during the war. His ship was in Rotterdam, and he remembered seeing the Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium. I told people I suffered from Barrett’s Disease, named after that classmate. I didn’t explain it and nobody asked thinking perhaps it was serious or even life threatening. Had anyone asked I would have told them it was my vow to out-travel my classmate, and I hold vows as promises.

The first country I visited was Canada. It didn’t seem all that foreign, but it was still first on my list of countries I’d visited and was the only country on that list for years, through high school and college. Ghana was second on the list. Never did I think I’d ever visit let alone live in Africa, but after a while, it seemed a cheat because I felt so comfortable in Ghana it stopped feeling like a foreign country. I traveled the countries bordering Ghana, and my list got longer. I always thought it the most amazing list, and I was just getting started.

When I chose Peace Corps, I never thought it would be the best decision I’d ever make. It was both exciting and scary. What I knew about Africa came from books and movies, but none of it really prepared me. Ghana was exotic, even magical. Those pictures from my geography books came alive. Women carried huge loads on their heads. On markets days, sellers and shoppers vied for space. I always thought the markets had a bit of carnival about them. The sides of the roads were filled with women sitting in the shade selling their goods, selling fruit and cooking food for sale. I didn’t know what I was eating, but I was adventurous enough to try. I tasted plantain, Guinea fowl, yam chips, mangoes and pawpaw (papaya) for the first time. I loved them all and more.

I haven’t added to my list of countries in a long time. My last three trips were back to Ghana. Before that I visited Morocco. When I added it to my list, I didn’t realize Morocco would anchor that last spot for such a long while.

I still suffer from Barrett’s disease so I’m itching to travel, the only way to mitigate my symptoms.

The heat is unrelenting. Today may be the hottest of all here. The temperature is already 87˚. I was going to do some planting but have decided to stay in the house until later in the afternoon when it might be just a bit cooler. The dogs go outside, do their business quickly then run back into the house and collapse in the cool air.

When I was a kid, Saturday was the best day of the week. I’d eat my cereal in the living room so I could watch TV. I always sat on the floor in front of the TV cabinet. Saturday morning TV was kid-centric. I remember Rin Tin Tin and Rusty, both of whom lived at an army post. Rusty would yell at ease and Rinty would let go of his prey, the bad guy. We tried to train our dog Duke, but he was a free spirit and never listened. In the winter, I watched until later in the morning. On warmer days I was gone early, usually for the whole day, mostly on my bike.

I loved exploring my town. Sometimes I would walk through the square and window shop. I always stopped to watch the lobsters floating in the pool at the fish market, but I hated the smell which hung in the air outside the store. I checked out the windows at Woolworth’s and Grant’s. I liked Woolworth’s better. My dime went a long way. I’d bike to the outskirts of my town in different directions and sometimes into the next town. I’d ride on the dirt beside the tracks. I knew where one side of the tracks ended, but I never reached the end of the other side. The tracks just kept going. I’m still curious about that. I did search but didn’t find the answer. It is still a mystery but not one worthy of Nancy Drew’s talents.

When I was older, in my teens, and still too young for cars, my friends and I walked. We had stops like O’Grady’s diner for a brownie topped with ice cream or one of the drug stores for a Coke. I preferred a vanilla Coke. We had drill practice either at the field, Recreation Park, until it got dark or in the school yard under lights. It was always dark when I walked home. I was never afraid in my town.