This is a late morning for me. I slept well. The house is comfortable and cool. Even the dogs hang around and nap a lot. The heat is still with us. The temperature is already 88˚, the high for the day. I have to go out to pick up some dog food and some replacement basil. I wish I could loll.

My friend Bill, of Bill and Peg fame, friends starting from my Peace Corps Ghana days, remembered it was 108˚one morning, around 8 am. It was the dry season when over 100˚ is common for many days in a row. The only saving grace is the heat was dry. I remember everything was brown. The fields were bare. Farmers had lit the fields on fire to burn away the brown grass and the stalks of harvested millet. I used to watch the progress of the fires burning almost in a straight line across the fields. The air was filled with smoke. Add the heat and breathing was laborious. I remember when the humidity started and pushed away the dry air. The rainy season was coming. The farmers readied their fields for planting. After the rains started, I loved seeing the tiny green growth sprouting in the fields being my house.

Each time I have gone back to Ghana it has been during the rainy season. The millet is tall in the fields. On the back roads, you can’t see houses or compounds beyond the millet on each side of the road. The once hard-packed dry roads soften in the rain making travel on some roads difficult. I remember going to Ougadougou during the rainy season and having to get out of the car so it could pass through mud holes and not get stuck. It rained every day.

The morning is overcast. A slight breeze blows every now and then, but the breeze does little in the humid, hot air. It is 79˚, a cool day, at least in comparison. My friend Bill commented about the heat. He brought me back to Ghana when he remembered one day during the dry season when it was already 110˚ in the classroom at 8:00. I do remember those days. The only fan I had was human-propelled. I used to take my shower, always cold water, just before bed and never towel dried. I’d throw on my robe, go inside and go to bed still wet from the shower. I felt cool. Illusionary? Probably.

The day is so very quiet. The heavy air dulls sounds. I don’t even hear the birds. Both dogs are asleep, Henry on the floor and Nala beside me on the couch. I have nothing planned to do today. My back is protesting all the work of the last few days. It hurts but only when I move.

Two things have died, my basil and the H on my keyboard. The basil is easy, the keyboard not so easy. I figure I planted the basil too close together so I’ll buy more basil and singly plant them in clay pots. As for the h, I wrote both small and capital H’s on a new note, always kept open so I can copy and paste. Somehow that feels archaic.

When I was a kid, we used pencils in the first two grades. My pencil boxes always came with an eraser, a pink eraser. It quickly became my go to eraser because the ones on my pencils got used so often they sometimes didn’t erase but left black marks or tore holes in my papers. The pencils wore down and needed sharpening but, luckily, that pencil box came with a small sharpener. I remember one year it was yellow. Every time I used it, I had to put a paper under the sharpener to catch the shavings. I used to sharpen so much I sometimes broke the point as soon as I used it so it was back to the sharpener. The pencils became stubs.

I use pencils still, but they seldom last to the stub point. Nala steals them and chews them into small pieces. I hide them but sometimes don’t remember the last hiding place because I use so many places hoping to keep everything out of the clutches of my consummate thief. My current pencil has Jack-o-lanterns on it, wrong season but darn festive.

I am behind closed doors. My air conditioner is blasting. The high today will be 87˚ and the low 72˚ though I can’t imagine in what world 72˚ is a low. A hot breeze is blowing. We had no rain yesterday despite a threatening sky and ugly humidity. The heat will be around until the weekend. I’ll be out on the deck later to water the plants.

When I was a kid, I don’t remember the heat ever bothering me. I was out every day. On the hottest days I sometimes went to the pool. It was on the other side of town, a long walk. The pool was often crowded. On the concrete sides of the pool, I remember couples, teens, spread out on towels next to each other. Girls had to wear bathing caps. I wondered why not boys. One time, when I dove from the board, I went straight down and hit my face on the bottom. I split my lip which swelled right away. The lifeguard checked me out then drove me home. I hated the split lip but I loved the ride.

When I was in Ghana, my friends had a pool near them. I used to kid them that they lived in the lap of luxury. Once in a while when I visited, we went to the pool, no bathing caps necessary.

I remember one Sunday when I was in Accra during a school holiday. A few of us got together and went to a resort on the beach. We were there all day. I remember a walk down the beach and a game of beach baseball. We used dead palm branches as bats and a coconut for the ball. It never went very far. I got the worst sunburn that day.

My dance card has a few items so I’ll be venturing out of the house. Today and tomorrow I have uke and Friday night I have a play. I still have a few things to put around the deck and two chairs to lug up from the cellar. I’m waiting until it is a bit cooler in the late afternoon, until the low of 72˚.

Right now it is cloudy and breezy. We’re all on the deck, the dogs and I. Out here is wonderfully pleasant. The breeze is so strong the whirly-gigs are blowing, and the small flags in the planters are fluttering. Nala is taking her morning nap on the deck. I don’t see Henry now. I suspect he went inside to the comfy couch for his nap, but he’ll be back. He is not keen on being alone in the house.

We have the possibility of rain late tonight but long after my ukulele concert in Hyannis.

Last year I didn’t open my deck. I sat out there on occasion but left the umbrella furled and the table and the rest of the furniture covered. This year I decided I needed the deck. I needed the beauty of my private space. I love how it looks with all the pots filled with herbs and flowers and with several candles on the rail and a few hanging from tree limbs. On the wall are pictures and my wooden shark which is surrounded by a hanging fish and some coral. I have more to hang on the walls, but they stay inside until I have company as they won’t tolerate rain and wet.

When I was a kid, I never minded staying around all summer. Mostly we did stay at home vacations as going away was too expensive. We went to museums which whetted my appetite and gave me a love of museums for the whole of my life. Even in Ghana I went to the museum my first free weekend in Accra. My favorite museum was the one at Harvard. I still remember the monkey heads in glass jars filled with formaldehyde and the out-rigger canoe hanging from the ceiling. At the Museum of Fine Arts, I didn’t like the paintings all that much, but I did love the room filled with sarcophagi. They were so enormous. I wondered about the mummies. On other vacation days we went to the beach or to a lake. I remember a lake with a slide into the water and a zip line. I rowed a boat for the first time there. I kept going in a circle.

My mother made the best picnic food. Her peppers and eggs were my favorite sandwiches, always in a roll. My father concocted the bug juice for the red tartan cooler. Orange was my favorite. Oreos were for staving off hunger, always a new bag emptied by the time we left for home.

We had summer cook-outs. My mother was the hunter gatherer, the shopper. My father was the cook. I think that is when I became a hot dog fan. My mother used to cut slits on the tops of the dogs. My father cooked them to perfection with grill marks. I suffused my dogs with yellow mustard and even piccalilli back then. My mother made a potato salad, the only salad we ever ate, even when we were grown.

Yesterday I bought hot dogs and potato salad.

Today is another hot day, in the low 80’s, with no breeze, just ugly still air. It will be partly cloudy. Thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow, and we desperately need the rain. I just hope it won’t rain on my parade, my Monday uke concert in the park.

We have a Liz update. She had another MRI which showed less brain activity than the first one but is still hopeful. She has been moved to a level 1 trauma hospital. Liz is  breathing on her own and is occasionally opening her eyes. She reacts to pain in her fingers and toes, but she is still sedated. They are hoping to bring her out of sedation slowly.

Yesterday I cleaned the deck, put white lights on the fence, sanded and painted the small table, watered all the plants in the pots, switched out the storm on the back door and did yard clean-up. By the time I had finished, I was sweaty and exhausted. I swear I am too old for all that. I should have been sitting in the shade of the umbrella with a cold drink in my hand. Today is dump day.

When I was a kid, I was forced to visit my aunt the nun who lived in Connecticut. We had to wear dressy clothes. I remember we always stopped just before seeing her so my mother could make sure we were spruced and ready for the visit. Luckily, we only went once a year, more than enough. Even though she taught, she seemed to have trouble conversing with us. She had stock questions. How was school? What were our favorite subjects? She always seemed a bit bored. Every visit, my aunt took us on a tour of her school and classroom. I always thought the best part of the visit was when another nun brought us cookies and a drink. After that we’d sit for a bit more then it was time to leave. Sometime later, she transferred to Baltimore, and our once a year visits stopped. None of us really missed her.

When I lived in Ghana, I always wore sandals. Everybody did. In Bolga, during my first dry season, the heels of my feet split. They were so painful I had to walk on tip-toes until callouses formed and hardened, and the skin on the heels of my feet became thick and ugly. I was glad. I could finally walk without tip-toes.

I’m thinking after the dump, I’ll camp on the deck. All that’s left to do is wash the table and bring out the other two chairs stored in the cellar. It is time for dinner and a movie on the deck, actually passed time. What movie, I wonder, is perfect for the red carpet premier?

Today is another delight. It will be hot, Cape Cod hot, at a high of 81˚. I have yard work I didn’t finish yesterday which includes trash picking the yard. I’m missing a container of nails. It was on the deck then it wasn’t. I need to water the flowers on the deck, put the screen in the back door, wash the big table, bring out more chairs and sand and paint the small red table. I figure when I’m done I’ll deck it for the rest of the day.

I’ve never believed in ghosts. I think aliens are more likely though I doubt them too. Most aliens are quite unfriendly according to the plots of the black and white movies I’ve see, and they want our planet. I used to watch The Invaders where aliens disguised themselves as humans, but the aliens were easy for David Vincent to find. They had a weird finger. After that, I used to look at peoples’ hands. I never caught an alien.

When I was a kid, Saturday was chore day for my dad. He brought his shirts to the Chinese laundry, got a trim at the barber’s just up the street from the laundry, cleaned the yard and mowed the lawn.

Sometimes we went to the drive-in on Saturday nights. When I was younger, I wore my pajamas as did most kids. If we were early, my brother and I would go to the playground in front of the concession building. Sometimes we would sit on one of the benches and watch the movie from there. I’ve mentioned before how my father wanted to beat the line of cars leaving so he’d leave before the end of the move. I hated that. One time, when I was really young, I went to the bathroom by myself and, afterwards, couldn’t find the car. I walked up and down lines of cars getting more and more panicky. I somehow ended up in the concession building. They announced over the car speakers, “Would the parents of Kathleen Ryan please come to the concession stand.” It wasn’t my finest moment.

The early morning was cool, in the 60’s. Now it is 72˚ and getting warmer. The sky is partly cloudy. The light breeze is cooling. Today is a deck day, not for lolling but for decorating. I want to finish putting all my pictures and doo-dads on the back shingles. I also need to clean the yard, and I think I have to fill in a couple of holes. Nala has dirt on her face, not a good sign.

When I was a kid, my dog Duke followed us everywhere. He also used to roam far and wide, sometimes with his son Sam. Duke was a smaller boxer, a brindle, while Sam was a fawn and far bigger than Duke. He was also not as smart, but he had the best grin. My mother used to get phone calls about the dogs. One time the dogs wouldn’t leave a yard so the lady called complaining she couldn’t leave her house because of the two dogs. She was afraid they’d attack her. Come to find out her dog was in heat, and both dogs were hoping. My father went and got them.

When I was growing up, I had favorite places. The field below my house was one of them. I remember one year when the whole neighborhood had an Easter egg hunt in and around the field. I got the big prize. I found the golden egg. I loved running through the field when the grass was high. I chased the grasshoppers jumping in front of me. They were all brown. Paths in the field led to the swamp, the blueberry patch and the water tower. I always ate the blueberries. The swamp was a stop where I checked the water, watched the tadpoles and later watched after they had become frogs. If I kept walking passed the swamp, I’d be on the street where the cemetery was. Later my parents moved close to the cemetery, and they could see the cemetery’s metal fence down the short hilly street in front of their house. My father used to tell us when he died we were to roll him down the hill and bury him.

My dance card is empty until Monday. This was a full week, and I was busy, out of the house busy, from Monday to Thursday. Today is stay at home busy. I like it. I get to stay in my cozies.

The news about Liz is hopeful. The MRI she had yesterday showed minimal brain damage from her two strokes. The doctors are cautiously optimistic. A second MRI will be given tomorrow to check the first results and look for any changes. If they can, they will start to take her out of the coma. The doctor said it would be a long haul in rehab, but she’ll do it. Liz is tough.

Yesterday was an air-conditioner day. The dogs were panting and I was sweating. Today could be the same with a high of 80˚, the current temperature. There is a thunderstorm warning, but I’m skeptical. It is a pretty day. The trees are dappled by sunlight. The blue sky is clear of clouds. The breeze ruffles the leaves of the oak trees.

My to-do list has familiar tasks. The laundry is in the hall where it has been for at least a week. Trash bags are by the fence waiting for my dump run, probably tomorrow.

Today I have a uke concert at the Harwich farmer’s market. We played there last year. I remember the bread lady. She always had a line waiting. I’ll be standing in that line. I got money yesterday.

My dance card has nothing after today until Monday, except maybe the return of movie night. It’s time to bring the red carpet out of storage. Last year I bought a few really bad B science fiction movies, but I never opened the deck for company. I’m thinking maybe to open with a classic like Gunga Din.

I went on the deck when the dogs were in the yard. I’ve put yard trash clean-up on my list for today. I saw the paper remnants of Nala’s thefts strewn around the yard.

My deck makes me smile. On the rail are the deck boxes filled with herbs. Flowers are in the rest of the pots around the rail. I finished the planting late yesterday when it was a bit cooler. Today I’m going to sand and paint the small red, metal table and the wooden fish table, deck regulars. I’m also going to decorate with candles, hanging decorations and some oddities I love. Already, the wooden shark head is hanging. I keep humming the shark theme from Jaws.

When I was a kid, there was a bread bakery in the square. Some days, the whole square smelled like baking bread, and I couldn’t resist that aroma. I’d buy a loaf with my allowance, tear off pieces and munch all the way home. My mother used to wonder why I wasn’t hungry for supper.

I could eat hot dogs every day. My sisters even joke about it. I butter and brown the rolls, add some cheese then slathered the rolls with spicy mustard and green pepper relish. I yum at every bite. The dogs sit by the table and stare. I always share, no wonder they sit and stare. I would.

Today is not the best of all days. The decision will be made as to the next step for Liz. All the test results will be ready by the afternoon. Yesterday, Ryan told his son Ryder the extend of his mother’s condition. For the first time, he cried. Now Ryan has to figure how to tell Georgie, his daughter. The worst is yet to come.

The morning is already warm with the temperature of 79˚, the high for the day. It’s cloudy right now, but the sun is back and forth from behind the clouds. The breeze is strong. All the leaves are blowing.

Yesterday I decided to finish my deck planting though I’m using finish loosely as most of the plants were still in plastic pots from the garden centers. I was out on the deck four hours. I planted herbs and flowers in 2 deck boxes and 15 pots, two decorative and the rest clay. After the potting, I swept the deck, cleaned the table and trash picked the yard. I was dirty and sweaty but happy. I had finally finished the one chore on my to-do list which had been carried from list to list. Today I still need to hit the garden center as I have one empty deck box and one empty clay pot.

When I was growing up, summer seemed endless. Days were spent on my bike, at the park or the pool. I was never home. I’d make my lunch and bring it with me. It was always a bologna sandwich on soft white bread slathered with mustard (the yellow kind as that was all we had), cheese, also yellow, and hot peppers, sometimes chopped and sometimes whole. I’d also pack some cookies, Oreos if we had any left as they went fast. I was never one for fruit in my lunch. I used to stop to eat under the shade of a huge tree. I’d put the kickstand down and keep my bike in the shade. Those handlebars got hot.

When I was in Ghana, I used to borrow a bike to pedal to town. It was all downhill. I’d park the bike near the market, finish my shopping then pedal home, uphill. That reminded me of when I was kid, and our house was at the top of a hill. I loved the ride down, but I mostly had to walk the bike uphill. It was the same in Ghana, but the more I rode, the easier the hill got. Finally, I was able to pedal all the way to the top of the hill. I stopped and cheered.

Today I’m taking a break. It has been a tough couple of days. I’m sitting by the phone waiting for updates. My niece-in-law, Liz, my nephew Ryan’s wife, is in critical condition with what they haven’t figured out yet. Those who love her, her family and friends, have rallied around her. They stay at the hospital. Liz is never without someone to hold her hand and talk to her. They take turns going in to see her, two or three at a time. Ryan stays by her side.

Her older child, Ryder, knows what is happening and has been with her, but her daughter, 8, only knows her mother is in the hospital but not the particulars. She is staying with her aunt, my niece, and her cousins.

Liz is in an induced coma and intubated. That’s all my head can handle.