The clouds are getting darker, but rain is not predicted, just clouds and cold. The high today will only be in the low 30’s with a wind making it feel colder. The low will be in the teens. I guess winter is reminding us this is his time. I’ll let him have it. Meanwhile, I’m going nowhere.

I have been especially industrious. Last night I washed the kitchen floor. I just couldn’t take the paw prints. My sensibilities cringed. I also brought boxes and a trash bag to the car. This morning I changed my bed. I’m working my way up to the dreaded laundry.

Bananas are probably my favorite fruit. On the road, in iffy spots, they are pretty safe to eat having a peel and all. They travel well. My Rice Krispies rise to a new level when banana slices are added. I haven’t had banana pudding in a long while, but I remember the taste and the silkiness of the custard. Bananas are my favorite start of the day. Both dogs love bananas. I give them each a piece from mine when I’m feeling especially generous. Henry usually blows bubbles around his mouth while he’s waiting for his. It is both gross and humorous.

When I was a kid, I wore uniforms to school so my wardrobe was a bit skimpy. I had a few skirts and a dress or two, Sunday clothes and play clothes. I had school shoes which doubled as church shoes, and I had play shoes, usually sneakers, always low rise, white tennis sneakers. In the summer it was shorts, Bermuda shorts, and a blouse, usually sleeveless. As proof that life goes full circle, I have a skimpy wardrobe again though I have far more pairs of shoes.

The most clothes I ever owned at one time were when I lived in Ghana where I had to wear dresses all the time and everywhere except in my own house and yard. The wife of a teacher who lived next door was a seamstress, and she made my dresses, all of which were sewn with Ghanaian cloth. Traveling had its difficulties. Pit stops were exactly that, but wearing a dress made it easier to squat. Not that I went to fancy places, but I was dressed for them anyway. I do remember during training I went to Accra with one of the staff members. We went to a bar. It was in an area in Accra I didn’t know existed where there were casinos, fancy hotels and restaurants. We played liar’s dice at the bar with the owner. In that game, winning is losing. I was perfectly dressed.

My dance card remains pristine. I did acknowledge the new week by changing my flannel pants for a new pair I just got on sale. The rest of my uniform remains the same: a tee shirt under a sweatshirt, socks and slippers. It’s a good thing I don’t expect company.

Today is an ugly day but a warm day. It is 45˚. I can hear the melting drops of snow dripping off the roof and hitting the deck. The dogs come in wet from running around the backyard soaked from melting snow. The steps are clear in the front and in the back. We had sun, but it was only a tease for a little while. Showers are predicted for later today so the clouds have moved in and taken over.

The wind is so strong I could feel the breeze blowing through the dog door up the hall. I closed the door. About five minutes later both dogs wanted out. I opened the door. They poked their heads out but stayed in the house. I think it was a test to determine their hold over me. They backed into the house and went down the hall. I got their tail ends. I hope that wasn’t a political statement.

The sun showed up a few minutes ago. All of a sudden the clouds lightened. I can see and hear the melted drops falling fast outside the den window. The sound is constant as if it were raining. The wind is still strong. The few brown oak leaves still on the trees are losing their battle with the wind.

My father cooked Sunday breakfast when I’d visit for the weekend. He’d always ask how I wanted my eggs cooked. I usually said over-easy. I loved dipping into the yolk with the toast. My father always started with the bacon. He cooked it in the cast iron frying pan. The eggs were next. They cooked in the bacon grease and were delicious. I always chose the rye bread for my toast. My father never broke the yolks.

When I was young, Chinese food was exotic. The only ethnic food we ate was spaghetti and meatballs. I remember my first foray into strange dining. We were visiting my aunt, the aunt whose husband owned the fish market. She served us spaghetti with clam sauce. It wasn’t red. It didn’t have meatballs. It had pieces of clams and a few clamshells with cooked inhabitants. I liked clams, and I liked spaghetti but wasn’t so sure they went together, but I was game. I was also surprised. It was tasty.

Mother Nature can’t seem to make up her mind. When I woke up this morning, it was a brilliantly sunny day with a deep blue sky extending as far as I could see. When I looked again a bit later, the clouds had taken over the sky and the sun had disappeared. But a short while later, they came back: the sun and the blue, but they brought a few clouds with them. That has become the pattern. The sun comes and goes. The clouds come and go. It is cold, 27˚.

Yesterday we didn’t get much snow. I threw out deicer on the back steps so the dogs don’t slide. I wish I had done the same on the front steps. No, I neither fell nor slipped, but I had to walk gingerly and carefully over the step mats now frozen and covered in ice. It is a good thing I have nowhere to go. I also have no ambition so it all works out perfectly for me, the sloth.

When I was a kid, I loved Hostess cupcakes. I had a routine. The frosting used to come off in one piece, and I’d save it for last. I always ate around the middle cream. That was second to last. It was the best day if I found Hostess cupcakes in my lunch box. I think I squealed.

I usually have three or four kinds of cheese in the fridge. My favorite changes, but cheddar is always on the list. I like it in chucks so I can cut a piece off and eat it on the run. When I was a kid, I thought cheeses was only yellow. My mother bought it by the box and by the slice. The box cheese made the best grilled cheese sandwiches, melty and hot and oozing out of the sides of the bread. Slices were for sandwiches, bologna sandwiches. What’s funny is the bologna came in a roll and had to be sliced. I was never a good slicer.

My outside Christmas lights are lit every night. I was going to shut them down after Little Christmas, the Epiphany, but the lights scare away the night, scare away the darkness. The rest of Christmas is put away, only the snowmen remain. They’ll stay around all winter.

The snow is coming down in smaller, wetter flakes than it had been earlier. The first snow was fluffy and perfect for snowballs and snowmen, but that has passed. Schools are closed today. The 2-3 inches of snow we have now weren’t enough to close schools, but the potential for up to a foot was. The kids down the street were sledding on the hilly driveways. The dogs have been out three or four times. They come back inside panting from running in the snow chasing each other all over the yard. Their fur is wet. They just went out again. We must be getting close to nap time.

Henry News!!!! Yesterday he came in the dog door all but twice. Today he has come in every time. I watched him once, and I understand his reluctance. He is awkward as if trying still to figure out exactly how to maneuver the door. It sort of hangs on him just a little bit. He’ll get it.

The Covid test I took yesterday was negative. I got the result this morning. It has been negative all along, but I just wanted to double check.

The wind is picking up and blowing the pine tree branches. Small mounds of snow fall off with every sway. Some of the branches are already clear. It is only 33˚. A freeze of the wet snow is imminent.

When I was a kid, I would have had school today. A couple of inches of snow is nothing, not even high up on my boots. I would have spent the morning at my desk sneaking peeks out the window to watch the snow fall. I never see the snow hit the ground. I just see it from the windows. Watching the snow fall is enough.

When I was really little, my mother dressed me for the snow. We started with warm socks then snow pants over my dungarees, the ones lined in flannel. On the top I wore a blouse and a sweater. The boots were next. They were worn over my shoes, and I can still see my mother with my foot between her legs pushing and pulling the boot over the shoe all the while exhorting me to help. My winter jacket was next. It zippered. My hat and mittens were last. I was clothed for a blizzard of major proportions.

My grandmother had snow boots. They had little heels and a button closure. They were black with a small bit of fake fur at the top. I have no doubt they were fashionable.

My dance card is still empty. I did go get the Covid test yesterday, but I didn’t even bother to get dressed. It was a car line. My mother would have been horrified if I had been in an accident.

Yesterday we had rain. I stayed around the house the whole day. The dogs went out into the yard. Neither one of them minds the rain. Today is cloudy. Snow is predicted for tomorrow, but, according to Google, we’re getting only an inch and a half. That hardly merits mention, but just in case, I asked Alexa. She is is predicting closer to three inches, not exactly a nor’easter.

I’m going out and about today, maybe even the dump, but I’m not sure, and I don’t want to raise your hopes.

My first airplane ride was an Easter gift when I was in college. There it was sticking out of my Easter basket. My parents had given me a ticket to Boston from Hyannis, a spectacular plane ride over the cape and the ocean just off shore. I tried to find my house by following Routes 6 and 28. I didn’t. I loved that plane ride. I was hooked.

My second plane ride was to Accra, Ghana from Philadelphia. The plane flew over the Cape. I tried to find my house. I didn’t. It took over ten hours, with a stop in Madrid, to get to Accra. We ate, we drank and we watched The Love Bug. None of us slept. I remember my seat belt got caught around my seat, and I couldn’t pull it free to use it. I remember the clinking of the glasses on the drink cart as it was pushed up the aisle. The aisle was busy. I remember running to the left side of the plane to see the Sahara. I was awed. There it was, the actual desert as far as we could see.

During my two years in Ghana, I would go on short hops from Tamale to Accra if I was in the money. I remember leaving Tamale after my two years for what I supposed was the last time. I put my head on the tray and quietly cried for the entire flight.

I flew from Niamey, Niger to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso (Upper Volta in my day) at the tail end of my vacation. I had gotten there overland, but I had gotten sick in Niamey and couldn’t face all that travel, hours of travel, so we flew. It was an Air France jet. Given the time change, we arrived in Ouga before we left Niamey. We stayed and slept at the Ouga airport as it had been the wee hours of the morning when we arrived.

Since then I have traveled. I have traveled in both prop and jet. I have been up in a balloon and in a helicopter. I have taken one cruise. I love trains and travel them whenever I can. I have to get back to Ghana one more time with my friends, Bill and Peg. I need to see my town and my students one more time. I’ll hold them close and keep them with me.

Grab the women and children! Run for the hills! We’re doomed. Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it has been a long time since we last had sun, and today is sunny. To add to the wonder, the sky is blue. It is, however, quite cold at 27˚ with a wind making it feel colder. I will admire the pretty day from inside the house.

I woke up and slid off the mattress to the floor propelled by dogs wishing me good morning. It wasn’t a long drop. It was mostly a slide. My mattress top had shifted beyond the side of the mattress. I sat on nothing; hence, the slide.

I have ordered delivery from Agway. The dogs will expect to eat today. Yesterday I went out the back door, looked into the yard and noticed cloth. I knew right away what it was from its colors. It was the Asafo flag I brought back from Ghana, a flag of the Fante tribe representing militias of a sort from villages. The flag has hand stitch appliqué figures and dates from sometime before 1957. I ran into the yard horrified but hopeful. Nala, the destroyer of worlds, usually just drags cloth and its kin into the yard and leaves it intact. I picked it up-intact, no damage.

I decided to clean the yard a bit. It had torn paper and pieces of cartons strew about the yard close to the end of the deck. I knew the perp. What comes next is the surprise. A few days ago, maybe three or four, my 4 Red Sox wooden coasters and a beaded giraffe from Ghana disappeared from a living room table. Without question or hesitation, I knew the perp. I found one coaster in the house, but the rest went missing. Yesterday, with cloth safely in hand, I noticed near where the cloth had been left were a couple of shallow dog holes. Near the holes, I saw one then another red disc. I turned the red discs over. Two Red Sox coasters found, only one still missing. Next to one disc was the beaded giraffe, intact, unharmed. The biggest surprise was the small tagine top lying sideways in the dirt. The top with a white background and swirls of black across the white was a piece from one of the three, wonderfully colorful, small tagines I had brought back from Morocco. The top went missing months ago. Only the saucer like bottom had been left on the hearth. I never found the top. I finally adjusted to its loss and stopped looking at the empty saucer. Without question or hesitation, I knew the perp.

I couldn’t believe it. There it was, the tagine top, intact, lying on its side next to a mound of dirt. I felt a bit like an archaeologist. I held up my find, my serendipitous find, to the sun, proverbially. The tagine is back on the saucer on the hearth. I hope it stays there.

Wait!! There is more! As I was cleaning trash in there same area as the other finds, I unearthed the hand cream I had just bought. I didn’t even know it was missing yet, and here, I find it in the yard, near the dirt. The tube was fine, no holes.

The last find is a sad one. There were red thin slats on the ground in the yard. I knew right away what they had been. They were from the Santa’s suit basket, belt and below, my friend had brought me with some cookies, not enough, I think, warm, fuzzy socks, and bread. It was a neat basket. I found no large pieces. I could have collected all the individual pieces but it would have taken forever. I left them in the yard. Without question or hesitation, I knew the perp.

The impending storm got me out early, and I’m just back from finishing my errands. My fingers are about ready to break off from my hands. They are bordering on numb cold. The frigid air and the wind are shocking and take your breath away. Snow is predicted for this afternoon. At first it was a dusting to an inch. Now there could be up to four inches. My philosophy today is simple: Let it snow! Let it snow! I’m home, comfy and getting back to warm. I have cream for my coffee and a blueberry turnover. The dogs each got a biscuit in a cat shape. The irony was lost on them. I have no further need to go out today.

Dark clouds and cold days seem to invite a nap. I’m penciling one in on my otherwise empty dance card for today.

My kitchen floor will finally get washed today despite the impending snow. I break out in hives every time I go into the kitchen and see paw prints covering every inch of tile floor from the back door across the kitchen to the hall.

When I was a kid, I walked to school every day. The weather didn’t matter. Every kid in my neighborhood walked to school, meandering on warm, sunny days and fast walking on cold or rainy days. We didn’t complain. That was the way it always was.

In Ghana, my house was on school grounds as were the houses of most of the staff. My classroom block was about a two or three minute walk across the compound from my house. Every day I walked pass one of the dorms, the dining hall and the principal’ s office/ staff room combo then back again, sometimes there or four times a day. I got wet on rainy days, but my clothes dried quickly. If I were out and about in town and it rained, I’d just duck into a store or covered spot until the rain ended or lessened to mist. Life goes on in the rain.

A cloud follows me everywhere. It is right over my head. Sometimes I get wet. All the time I live in the shade. Okay, I’ve not fallen off the deep end here. I am spreading my wings, merely waxing poetic. I have moved beyond screaming into a far different realm where my words rhyme.

We have no sun. We never have sun. We have 49˚ with clouds. We had fog but it has dissipated as they say on the weather. It will get cold tonight. Snow is predicted for tomorrow, an inch or a bit more. I guess we’re easing into winter, real winter one inch at a time. Meanwhile, my sister in Colorado is living with snow, inches of snow, and single degree temperatures. She stays hunkered.

I had some groceries delivered today. I needed light cream for my coffee. It was the first item on my list. It was also missing, the only item they did not substitute. I don’t dare leave my house today, something about karma. I’m humming Clouds in My Coffee.

Henry came in the dog door twice today, but he is right now banging the door cover alerting me he wants to come in again, and I should open the door. I don’t get it.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a lost day. We were stuck with church in the morning. Most times I walked there by myself, but sometimes I went to early mass with my father. I was never a fan of early mass, but it had perks. I got a dime for the basket and a donut of my choice after mass as my father always brought home a dozen. His donut choices were boring, and he never remembered what I liked. He bought plain donuts, called old-fashioned at Dunkin’, in cruller and round shapes, glazed donuts and jelly donuts. His favorite was the plain. He used to spread butter across the top of the donut. His butter had texture with hills and valleys. I think he bought all those plain donuts as he knew they would be the last to go. I swear it was the same half donut left in the box every week in a sort of haunting. I never buy a dozen donuts.

Happy New Year!

I slept late this morning. I woke up to clouds and rain. I woke up and remembered it was a new year still filled with hope as are all new years. I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, let the dogs out, put on the coffee, ran back upstairs, gave Gwen her shot and both cats their food, some scratches and pats, ran back downstairs, let Henry inside then went to the front yard to get today’s paper. I got rained on.

When I was a kid, we used to watch the Rose Parade every New Year’s Day. That the parade was in black and white was no nevermind. That’s all we knew. We’d eat our cereal sitting on the floor in front of the TV as close to the screen as my mother would let us sit. She didn’t want us to go blind. We all loved parades.

That New Year’s Day was the last day of Christmas vacation didn’t escape us, but we were ready to go back to school. It was easy to run out of stuff to do when you’re stuck inside because of the cold or the rain, and that always happened during Christmas vacation.

I prefer mittens to gloves. They keep my hands warmer, but I do have a pair or two of gloves anyway. I keep one pair in the car, as sort of part of an emergency kit. Actually, I think it’s the only item in my winter emergency kit or any emergency kit for that matter. Anyway, inside the house, under the coat rack AKA the clothes tree, I have a Bolga basket filled with mittens, one pair of gloves and two short scarves. My long new scarf is drying off from having been dragged into the rain onto the deck. The perp is known but will not be identified.

Ketchup on hot dogs and eggs is just wrong. In a bit of a stretch, I can see but not condone ketchup on a hot dog as it is a condiment related in function to mustard and or relish and maybe some chopped onions, the proper toppings.

People don’t put ketchup on fried eggs or eggs Benedict, poached eggs or eggs on toast as called them when I was a kid, or on egg salad, which I find a bit gross in appearance anyway, or on soft boiled eggs which we used to eat from chicken looking egg cups. People mostly put ketchup on scrambled eggs. What is it about scrambled eggs that invites ketchup? Why not on the other eggs? I use salt and pepper, mostly pepper.

Why do people put paper towels in only one direction with no arguments as to which direction? Toilet paper direction, on the other hand, is cause for war. Why one and not the other? The answer may be the key to solving all the mysteries of the universe.

The weather hasn’t changed. I looked out the window when I first opened my eyes and saw the clouds. I didn’t want to get out of bed but Nala did so I had no choice. The deck is wet. It had rained sometime earlier. The day is warm at 47˚. More rain is supposed to hold off until tomorrow. I’m not enthusiastic about a new year which begins with rain.

Today I have no plans. I have actually vacuumed a couple of room already. The pet hair was taking over. I also cleaned down the stairs. I do feel quite accomplished. I know the dump is looming, probably Sunday.

I don’t make resolutions. I did once but at some point I decided a resolution was too much of a commitment. I used to smoke. One Friday I decided not to go to the store to get a package of cigarettes even though I had only four left. I never smoked again. It had been time to stop. Changes are mostly like that for me. They just seem to happen at the right time.

When I was in Ghana, I went back to visit my Ghanaian family in Bawku over New Year’s. My sister insisted I go to church with her on New Year’s Eve. I smiled and said yes, but inside I was feeling trapped. The church service would be long, hours long. It was, but it was amazing. The church was filled with people. The women wore their traditional dresses made with beautiful Ghanaian cloth. Many men wore fugus, smocks, while others wore kente cloth over one of their shoulders. The church was beautiful, a bright, lively scene with all those colors. The singing started first. After that the dancing began up and down the aisles. My sister tried to drag me into the dance, but I had no rhythm and that held me back. I did clap and sing from my pew. The minister gave a sermon about old sins and new beginnings. The Ghanaians nodded, the speeds of the nods determined how much they agreed with the minister. It was fascinating to watch. I even tried my hand at it!! I tried nodding and mostly did okay. I don’t remember thinking the hours were long to be in church. The time passed so fast. That whole experience is one I will never forget. It was joyous and warm and lovely.

When I was a kid, I never understood the hoopla of New Year’s Eve. As far as I could tell, the first days of the new year were no different than the last days of the old year, well, maybe a little colder, maybe not, but saying goodbye seemed silly to me. When I was older, I celebrated some years but not usually at parties. My friends and I did game nights. We’d pause at midnight, toast the new year, clink glasses and then drink our champagne. We’d go back to the game with our champagne glasses in hand. Of late, I am awake at midnight just because I am always awake at midnight. I keep an eye on the TV for the time, acknowledge midnight and say Happy New Year aloud into the air hoping it will be.