Today was a chase Nala day. I got a small delivery in three bags. One bag had several items. Another bag had two frozen items, and the third bag had chips and wafer cookies, chocolate wafer cookies to make it even worse. I heard the bag, the chip and cookie bag, being pulled through the dog door with her. I ran outside and she was already off the deck. Henry didn’t see her either. I looked over the railing and saw her standing majestically with my bag of chips, sour cream and onion, in her mouth, both unopened. I slowly made my way down the stairs. She took off in a blur, chips in mouth. I got into the yard, but she was on the other side of the yard, on the other side of my very unkempt backyard filled mostly with tall brush. I stood my ground and offered treats as exchange. She got closer. She took off, a tease, a game I didn’t enjoy playing. Nala was all in. Finally, she dropped the chips where I could reach them. They were a little worse for wear, sort of crumbly from multiple trips around the backyard. Nala got her treat. I got my chips. I don’t know where the wafers are. They are on the list as having been delivered. I need to check the bag in the yard, but I don’t really want to trash pick today, even for the possibility for chocolate.

Today looked like fall. Today felt like fall. Google says it is 76, but it feels chillier in the shade: chillier is better than colder I guess. The sun appears infrequently as slanted light through the trees in my backyard. The summer light, which was scattered and diffused through the same trees, covered the whole backyard. This change in light signals the change in seasons when dark comes early and stays long.

When I was a kid, Tuesday was no big deal. Wednesday and Thursday were’t either. They were regular days with the same pattern for each day. It was wake up for school, eat breakfast, get dressed in my school uniform, walk to school, sit in school for a bit, eat lunch, have recess, sit for more, walk home, play, do homework, eat dinner, watch TV then go to bed to maybe read a bit, then, finally, turn out the light and go to sleep. If that list sounded boring, it was. There were no surprises. Rain and snow didn’t change anything unless it was a lot of snow, a snow day of snow, mostly an overnight event, and snow days were rare. We did stay in for recess on a wet day. We could talk and walk around the room. I got soaked if I walked home in the rain and frozen if I walked home in the snow. I liked the rain better. My clothes and I got dried quickly. Snowflakes, wet and icy on shoes and clothes, took longer to dry. Snuggling in bed under lots of covers and reading under the bedlam were my favorite ways to get dry. Often I fell asleep. I slept wonderful naps, comfy and warm naps, my favorite sort of naps still.

This is my favorite time of year. Most of the traffic is gone, the ocean is still warm, the days are pleasant, generally in the 70’s, and the nights are cool for sleeping. Scattered thunderstorms are predicted for today, and, of course, it is dump day. I also need cat food and bread. My cleaning regimen of doing at least one room a day starts today. Here in the den is about as dusty as I have seen it. I could write an entire novel in the dust. Wash me isn’t enough.

Yesterday I left the dogs alone for about three hours. Nala kept herself busy. She concentrated on the table above and the baskets below. My wooden back scratcher no longer has teeth. She chewed my pen. I found pieces of it in a couple of different rooms. She pulled apart a catalog, one page at a time. That was it. I was pleased. Clean up was quick.

Both dogs are asleep beside each other and me on the couch. Nala has the end cushion, and she is sort of stretched. Henry is next to her and me. He is sleeping with his head on Nala’s back as he didn’t have enough room. He looks comfortable now.

When I was a kid, I used to beg my mother to let me ride my bike to school. It was such a good ride, the best ride. I’d speed down the steep hill where I lived then ride quickly across the road at the bottom. From there I’d coast, still using momentum from the hill, until I had to pedal on the straightaway. At school, I parked my bike in the wooden rack under the trees. I didn’t have a lock. I knew my bike was safe. On the ride home, I’d usually end up walking my bike up the last part of the hill, the steepest part of the hill, to my house.

My mother packed great school lunches. She never gave us peanut butter and jelly or fluffernutters because we thought of those as a snack, not as a school lunch. She mostly packed bologna, cut thinly and evenly unlike my jagged thick and thin slices or ham sandwiches. On both sandwiches I had mustard, yellow mustard. Friday was always, and I mean always, tuna. I don’t eat tuna now, haven’t for decades. I had my fill when I was a kid. We always had dessert, and it was never fruit. I didn’t like fruit in my lunchbox. Sometimes we got Oreos. My mother would hide them after shopping so she’d have them for lunches. We never found them. I remember potato chips in wax paper bags. I remember an occasional Hostess treat. They were special. Sometimes they were cupcakes, other times Snowballs, pink ones. Ding Dongs were my favorites. I usually ate them with a flourish from hand to mouth. I wanted the other kids to know I had Hostess.

I don’t have the time this morning to write Coffee. I need to be in Hyannis and won’t be home until late afternoon. Enjoy your day. It’s a pretty one.

The morning was tiring. Both dogs woke me up by playing on my bed. One attacked the other then both attacked me. They licked my feet, dug under the sheet when I tried to hide my feet, got tired of looking for my feet and tried to lick my face. I could take it for only so long so I got up up, let them out and waited for Henry. We both went back to bed. Nala would come in on her own when she was ready. We slept another hour. We’re talking sleeping the morning away, at least for me. The dogs woke me up by jumping on and off the bed. It was time to start the day. It was close to noon. I took my time to read the paper. I completed the Globe crossword puzzle. It had an error. The clue was Hawkeye’s home. We all know he came from Crab Apple Cove, Maine. Radar was from Iowa, the answer.

Both dogs have been in and out. The day is dog perfect for running in the yard and for chasing one another back and forth below the deck. It is 74˚. The high will be 76˚. The streaming sunlight has a cold look about it, a slant, a sharpness. It is a different light than summer light. It is still warm enough in the daytime for short sleeve shirts, but nights in the 60’s mean a sweatshirt for me, but I like the feel of these nights. The chill is still comfortable, even welcomed after a hot day.

I wrote a list of chores on Tuesday. I have crossed off two. One of those was cancelled so I really only did one. I was a slacker, a sloth of epic proportions, and I enjoyed doing nothing. Today, however, I feel like doing something so I’ll reactivate my old list. I never did throw it away. It sat on my table.

When I was a kid, I loved days like today. Mostly I rode my bike. I’d pack a lunch, roll up a sweater or a small jacket, put both in my bike basket and take off for the day. I remember riding to get uptown then walking my bike on the sidewalk so I could look at the windows to see what was new and what was old. Uptown was interesting when I was a kid. It had many little stores and many drug stores but they were a bit different from each other. The Middlesex Drug was grand to me. It had an epic soda fountain. It had the best vanilla cokes. Pullo’s had only four stools at the counter on the left. If I went with my dad who would often drop in to say hello, I got a coke while I waited. I never really went into the drug store at the furthest end of the square, at a corner which was never a corner for the stores. They were a sort of arc with the drug store in the middle.

On one side of the square was the men’s store, Finnegan’s. It was in a block of long stores with small store fronts. I never went inside, but I remember looking in the window and seeing long racks of suits. The luncheonette was beside Finnegan’s. I don’t know its real name. I remember a long counter with stools. When we’d get back from an orthodontist appointment in Boston, my mother would buy me a sandwich from there. I’d eat before I checked in at school. I remember the sandwich was always toasted.

Memories pop up unexpectedly. I think today I could have remembered every store uptown by name or function. My favorite has always been the cobbler’s. It too was in a long building. Inside was one counter the length of the shop. It was covered in shoes paired together. The cobbler was always hunched over a shoe. He wore a bib apron. I remember he was old, but I was young so old was different to me. He had the most interesting window. I could watch him work shoe by shoe. I don’t know when his shop disappeared. I just remember looking and not finding it there. I was sad it was gone.

The rain is heavy. I can hear the drops hitting the top of the barbecue which long ago lost its cover. The dogs went out reluctantly. I went out to get my papers, also reluctantly. It is supposed to rain into the night with thunder and lightning coming later. I won’t complain about all the rain. We still need it.

My neighborhood is quiet. The house beside me is empty for the winter. On the other side of me, Brazilians live there, guys who work for my landscaper. We do say hello the few times we meet. In the house across from me are two people I never see. I do wave at the woman in the corner house. She waves back. Down the street are the only other houses with people. Eight kids live on the street, down the other end, but they are all in school. Not even the dogs bark.

When I was a kid, I liked school, but some of the nuns scared me. All you could see were their hands and faces. Their orders were instantly obeyed. Nobody dared whisper. Nobody wanted the wrath of the nun. My classroom was filled with close to forty kids. All the classrooms were filled. We were the boomer generation. The parish had to build a new school, but before it did, we went to double sessions. I hated getting out so late in the afternoon. In winter it was getting dark by the time we got home. The street lights came on quickly, no going out to play.

I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have a TV. I remember the giant console in the corner of the room. Behind its doors was a tiny screen. My father put an antenna on the roof. Sometimes, though, the picture got snowy. We’d wiggle the dials and the rabbit ears hoping to clear the picture. All the stations were local. I remember Big Brother Bob Emery and Rex Trailer. I learned that Eisenhower was president and Hail to the Chief was his song when we toasted him with milk on the Big Brother show. His theme song was The Grass is Always Greener. He played a ukulele.

I don’t remember when I went to bed back then. I remember watching a bit of evening TV. I remember all the westerns. I think I got my fill back then as I am not a fan of westerns except maybe for The Lone Ranger, Annie Oakley and Rin Tin Tin. “Go Rinny!”

Today is lovely with clear, still air and a temperature of 77˚. These are the days I love the most. They invite rides along the water, stops at vegetable stands and the flower stands people put along the sides of the road. Everything is quiet. The kids are in school.

The morning didn’t start well. My half and half had lumps. It went into the trash. I couldn’t imagine a morning without coffee so I ordered Dunkin’ from DoorDash, expense be damned. The driver was here in no time but not with my order. He brought iced coffee. I checked my order just in case, no ice coffee. I called DoorDash. They gave me credit and told me to enjoy the ice coffee and offer one to the driver. I did. He said he doesn’t drink coffee. I asked him where he was from. “Africa,” he said. I asked where. “Ghana,” he said. I was so excited and told him I had lived in Bolga which surprised him. He had never been to Bolga, no surprise there as most southern Ghanaians never go north. He was from Cape Coast, a city I love. It is filled with old buildings, tiny streets and people, always people, people walking on sidewalks and the sides of the streets. How wonderful it was to talk to someone from Ghana. He said he hoped he’d have to deliver here again.

My parents used to take cruises back in the day when men wore tuxes and women wore long dresses to the formal dinners. They usually traveled with my aunt and uncle. Their cruise ships stopped at mostly Caribbean islands. At one stop my father rented a car and drove into the mountains of one of the islands. He told me how they stopped at a local place for some drinks, and he took a picture of an old woman who yelled at him. His response, ” I have your soul in my camera.” She didn’t speak English. Good thing.

When I was a kid, I loved geography. I remember a map which had tiny drawings representing what crops each country grew. I remember coffee and bananas. I remember the rice growing countries. I used to pore over each map imagining what the country was like. Holland had tulips and windmills. South America had llamas, mountains and coffee. Latin American had bananas and pineapples. Later, much later, I traveled to some of those countries. I saw the windmills and tulips. I traveled through the Andes and saw llamas, so many llamas. I don’t remember the coffee, but I do remember seeing banana trees filled with not yet ripe bananas. My geography book had come to life. I was thrilled. I was living my dreams, my imagings.

Last night sometime after two we had rain, a deluge of rain. I jumped out of bed to shut windows. Henry followed. He always does. Nala stayed on the bed disinterest in what Henry and I were doing. I fell right back to sleep.

Right now it is 75˚ and dark and cloudy. Nothing is moving in the thick air. I don’t hear anything except the jangle of Nala’s tags on her collar. I keep track that way. She is elusive.

I choose to do nothing today except to shower for the sake of propriety. I will not notice the dust or the tumbleweeds.

I have no reason to go out. I did change the cat litter and get to the dump yesterday. I felt accomplished enough for a few days anyway.

My mealtime habits would make a nutritionist cringe. I don’t take the time to make a real dinner, one with a variety of foods, like meat, potatoes and veggies, on the plate. I’m big on cheese, sharp cheddar, and crackers, Club crackers. They make for an effortless meal.

We used to think of today as the last day of summer, calendars no nevermind. School always started the day after Labor Day. We had to take our baths on Monday, a bit disconcerting. My mother would set out our clothes so we’d get ready quickly in the morning. My uniform was a blue skirt, a white blouse and a blue tie, one of those bow ties with legs. I remember getting dressed, grabbing my school bag and loving that everything was new. My pencil box was pristine. The crayons were tall and had points at the end. My lunch box had first day goodies, usually something from Hostess. After breakfast I’d meet my friends, and we’d walk to school together. We’d be in the schoolyard until the nun rang the bell, the hand bell. We’d accept our fates, get into lines two by two and walk into the building. I swear the doors were slammed shut behind us.

The morning is cloudy. Google says it’s sunny, but he has no access to the windows. The air is a bit damp and makes today’s 74˚ feel cooler than it is. The small breeze is constant. Rain is predicted for tomorrow. Of course it is. I washed the kitchen floor yesterday. Maybe if I had known about this connection before, the one between rain and a clean kitchen floor, I could have prevented the drought we find ourselves in, and my kitchen floor would be immaculate. My only plan for today is a trip to the dump as it will be closed the next three days. Such an adventure!

I’m wearing my slippers, both of them. The former lost slipper feels a bit different, a little squishy in the toe. I don’t mind. I’m just happy to have my slipper back. I still need to collect the rest of Nala’s trash from the yard.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. The stores were closed. The churches were full. My church had masses up and down. I liked the down as the mass seemed to go faster, freeing us sooner. Back then women had to wear hats. I used to wear a small, round mantilla, the smallest not really a hat I could find. I used to crumble it up and put it into my pocket when I was out of church. Lace doesn’t crumble. It pockets well.

My grandmother lived down the street from the First National. She used to grab her wheeled basket, the sort you pull behind you, and shop. She had a closet in the kitchen where she stored some groceries, but I remember most the bottles of root beer on the closet floor. The kitchen’s top cabinets went to the ceiling. My grandmother was tall but stooped the way some some old ladies are. The only table in the kitchen was a built in with a bench. It was cozy, a better word than small. My grandmother wasn’t a good cook. She could do a roast with potatoes and canned veggies as that was an easy meal to fix, but her spaghetti was gross with stewed tomatoes plunked on top instead of sauce. I hated the clumps of tomatoes. When I was really young, we used to go there for dinner on Thanksgiving day evening. I can still see the wooden dining room table with matching chairs and the French doors facing the side yard. I don’t think I ever saw those doors opened. We used to use the side door which opened to the kitchen. All of the doors except the front were close to neighbors’ houses. My grandparents’ yard was open to all the backyards. Much, much later, a different owner fenced in the yard. It was a tiny yard. Once in a while I go by the house on my way to somewhere else.

Huzzah!! I have a pair of slippers. The lost slipper appeared as if by magic. I went on the deck and saw my slipper on the driveway part in the yard. I ran down the deck steps closely followed by Nala, trying, I suspect, to save her treasure. The slipper is a bit worse for wear. It is soaked from all the rain. A new hole is on the side. It also lost its insides which appeared, almost magically again, in the house in two pieces, one at a time. Now I have a pair of slippers.

When I was a kid, I got new slippers every Christmas. Each year they were the same, slipper socks with a wool top and a leather bottom. Only the color of the wool changed. The soles made a noise when I walked, a sort of a shuffling sound. They kept my feet quite warm. One year my sister gave me a pair of slipper socks for Christmas. The top was mauve. They made noise when I walked.

When I visit the town where I grew up, I sometimes just drive around some of the streets looking for my memories. They are easy to find. My house hasn’t changed. The trees have. They are taller than the house. My elementary school hasn’t changed either, but the convent where the nuns lived was torn down, the land sold and a building sits there now. I pass houses where kids I used to know lived. I think about them.

I have been to the theater uptown to see plays. It was my movie theater when I was a kid. The front hasn’t changed, but the inside is totally different. People can sit in the balcony, and none of them toss Juju Beads at the people below which usually includes me. The folks in the back row now watch the play. During Saturday matinees couples sat there and made out as we used to say. I found it amazing. I was probably only 10.

I miss places in my town which have disappeared. The armory where I used to have drill team practice is now a hardware store. The armory was sort of neat with all wood and the hanging flags and banners. The hardware store is generic. The fish market spot has a restaurant, the second one on the site. I’ve eaten there once. I had a Cuban sandwich. The diner is gone, replaced I think by another hardware store. The box factory is gone. It was across from the train station and the red store. I used to cross by it when I walked the tracks. The police box which sat in the middle of the square was hit by a car and couldn’t be saved. It is one of the unique places in my old town I miss the most.

I have friends who still live in town. I don’t see them often. One has been my friend for well over 60 years. We share amazing memories. We laugh a lot. It doesn’t get much better than that.