The morning is near perfect. The sun is shining and is framed in a blue sky which goes on forever. The air is a bit chilly. The breeze is strong but intermittent. Every now and then the top branches, the ones closest to the sky, sway. It will be 74˚today. Tomorrow, the rain returns. If you stop by to visit, I won’t apologize for the dog print covered kitchen floor. I was going to wash it today, but with rain predicted tomorrow, I’ll wait. I love a plausible excuse!

I have been hauling trash bags to the car. Today is dump day. My trunk is already filled and two more bags sit by the car waiting to be loaded. Filled with used litter, those bags from the cat room were so heavy they almost took me down the stairs.

My dance card is mostly filled this week. Today is my only list free day, and the dump is my only chore. I have uke practice tomorrow, inside for the first time this fall, both dogs have a vet appointment Wednesday, friends are coming for dinner on Thursday and Friday is another uke concert. I can’t remember the last time I was this busy. I’m not sure I like it. My reputation as a sloth, one I cherish, is in jeopardy.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know many bullies. I figure they were around but avoided me. They knew I couldn’t abide bullying. Only once did peaceful methods fail me. I was driven to violence, to punching a boy in the face, one who deserved punching. I don’t even remember the boy I punched. I do remember getting caught and going to the principal’s office. I was a ten year old felon. The principal agreed with me in philosophy but explained that punching was an unacceptable response. I sort of agreed.

My mother always used unbreakable glasses and plates. My favorite glasses were the aluminum ones in different colors. They had a matching pitcher. My second favorite glasses were the old jelly glasses. They had cartoon figures on the front. I have a couple of those. I remember the Melmac dishes. I also remember that Melmac was the home world of ALF but that is pure coincidence. Anyway, if the Melmac dish hit the floor, it rattled over and over until it stopped dead, surrounded by food. Seeing meat, potatoes and veggies on the floor was never a pretty sight, but the dish, sitting in the middle of the mess, never broke. When we closed up and sold my mother’s house, there were still a few Melmac plates with the wheat decoration. Those dishes were legendary.

Yesterday it rained on and off most of the day. In the early afternoon the rain stopped but left air so thick with humidity you could see the mist. Later, in the early evening, the rain returned in earnest with drops heavy enough to be heard. They fell on the leaves of the oak trees, on the wooden deck and, loudest, on the top of the metal barrel. Both dogs got soaked. I don’t know when the rain stopped, but around 2:30 or 3 the rain started again, a gentle rain. It lulled me to sleep.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a wasted day. We, all the kids in my neighborhood and I, were captives. It was a day without choices. First, I was stuck going to mass. That I could choose the time didn’t matter. I was still stuck. I always sat in the back, the easiest seat for a quick escape. As soon as I heard, “Go in peace,” I was out the door. At Sunday mass there was always a sermon. I think I groaned out loud when the priest walked to the pulpit. I always prayed for a short sermon. I swear people applauded when the priest finally finished. The rest of the mass was a blur.

Sunday was the only day we didn’t have supper. The roast and all the fixings elevated the midday meal to dinner. It was sacrosanct when I was young and was always the highpoint of the day. I had to stay within shouting distance if I went outside to ride my bike or play around the yard so I could hear my mother call for us. The table was always set ready for dinner when I got home.

It’s a school night, one of my least favorite phrases, was used every Sunday to get us into bed earlier. My mother always said we needed to be rested for school. That made me groan. It seemed unfair that every week I had to go to school five days and every week I got only two days off though one, Sunday, was iffy.

I was never a worrier when I was a kid. Duck and cover, which we practiced in school, was just silly fun. While we were covered, while our heads were hidden in our folded arms, we used to covertly look at each other and silently laugh. The nuns never did explain all that well why we were on the floor in the corridor with our arms around our heads, and we never asked. The nuns said to do it so we did.

Last night the storm arrived with thunder, lightning and near torrential rain. The window in the den facing east was outlined by flashes of lightning. The thunder boomed overhead. It got the dogs’ attention but for only a minute. They went back to sleep. It was still pouring when I went to bed.

The rain had stopped when I woke up but then I heard it on the roof. When I looked out the front door, I saw a sheet of rain, a curtain of drops, falling straight down. I had to shut the front door. The floor inside was getting wet from the ricochet of rain on the steps. The dogs were soaked when they came back inside from the yard.

Scattered showers is the forecast for today with a high in the mid 70’s and a low in the mid 60’s. It is still rainy day dark. I thought I saw a bit of sun earlier, but I think I was deluded.

This morning I realized we are living in a loop. Today’s news is a rerun of the news from last year. Covid is raging. The vote count in Arizona from the presidential election has just been completed. Biden garnered additional votes. No comment from Governor Abbott. Texas is the new fraud and is about to be recounted.

I was so excited to vote I registered the day I turned twenty-one. My first vote was cast for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. I used a black pen to fill in the circle next to Senator Humphrey’s name. I wanted a perfect ballot so I carefully filled the circle and stayed inside the line. My candidate lost.

I found myself bored this morning. I went up and down the TV remote checking channel after channel. Nothing! I longed for the days of Saturday Creature Double Feature when I could watch two 50’s black and white movies and be entertained all afternoon on a rainy Saturday. I ended up on the syfy channel and am watching Godzilla from 2014. The city is being destroyed by a monster couple or a couple of monsters. Take your pick. My favorite scene was when the male monster (he flies) took one train car at a time off the bridge, squeezed it flat then threw it. The romantic scene between the male and female monsters was better fit for a gigantic bedroom. In this remake, Godzilla is the hero brought back to life to kill the two monsters. They’re just now getting acquainted. I’ll let you know how the movie ends!

2:45 am: The night is noisy. A little bit ago, the dogs and I went out. While they mingled in the yard, I stayed on the deck . I could hear all the night insects, the crickets and the katydids. My back yard lit up when Nala ran by the lights which are mounted on the back of the deck. They shine on the open ground. The trees are in shadow. I can see the dogs almost anywhere in the yard when all four spotlights have been triggered. Sometimes when I go to bed the lights are still on. The yard looks pretty at night. The lights stay on about ten minutes after the dogs come in. Sometimes I am surprised when everything goes dark in a blink.

This morning I had an English muffin. It took a while to brown. Toast takes less time. I watched through the toaster oven window and cheered when a small bit of brown showed up on the round edge. The muffin is from a local company. It has no ridges, but it has great taste. I had to use the toast prongs to take the hot muffin ends out of the toaster. I slathered them with butter. I was out of fig. (I apologize for this boring paragraph. Seriously, who wants to hear about an English muffin browning, except Simon and Garfunkel, “Wish I was an English muffin, ‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster, I’d ease myself down, Comin’ up brown.” They’d have liked my muffin, but I have no boysenberry.)

The wind is strong, and I can hear the creaks of the pine branches when they sway. Thunder showers are predicted for later. Of course they are. The day is dark. The sky is a single white cloud. The warm air, in the mid 70’s, is getting thick, more humid. The saving grave is the breeze from the window behind me, from the north.

When I was a kid, I’d cross the open field below my street both to and from school. On some days, the wind, as I crossed that field, was terrific. I loved it. I’d face the wind and spread my arms out straight hoping to fly, sort of to helicopter or even to kite it into the sky. Sometimes I moved backwards quickly blown by the wind. It was exhilarating. My mouth was open in joy. It didn’t matter much to me the direction of the wind. Either I’d be blown backwards or I’d have to fight the wind straight on with my head down as sort of a battering ram (okay, that last simile might too much. If so, I apologize.) Anyway, I loved walking in the wind, one way or the other.

Today I’m home for the duration; nothing is going on. I am having friends over for dinner this weekend so I’ll plan my menu tonight. I’m leaning toward sea food, maybe a boil or a paella. It’s been months since I last had company so I want to put my best foot forward (similes and cliches! Yikes).

The dogs woke me up this morning when they chased each other and jumped on my bed to eat each other’s heads while politely growling. I kicked them off a few times, but it continued. I gave up and went downstairs. Both Henry and Nala are having their morning naps, one in here and the other in the hall. The child in me wants to wake them, rudely, but the adult in me prefers to have them sleeping and sleeping they’ll stay, at least until dinner.

Today is another delight. The breeze is making the current 78˚ feel cooler than you’d expect. The sun was here earlier but has disappeared. I guess the clouds figured partly sunny, today’s weather report, means they get some sky time. I have to go out for a quick errand today. I’m also going to buy some mums. I have a pumpkin already on the steps but a mum is essential for fall decorating.

Nala has become a naturalist. She brings in small pine branches still with pine needles. She brings in pine cones of various sizes. Today it was a big one. Yesterday the pine cone was tiny. Anyway, she now tears apart the pine cones and rips the pine needles off the branch, always in the house. She doesn’t eat them. She does it for the fun of it. I vacuum. It is never fun for me.

This morning I got distracted and forgot to turn on the coffee. I put in the water, the filter and the fresh grounds then went and put some trash by the car for a soon to be scheduled dump run. That interruption was enough for me to forget the coffee. I sat down to read the papers and shortly thereafter wondered why the aroma of coffee was not wafting through the house. I went to the kitchen and turned on the coffee.

My grandmother, the one who couldn’t cook, had been born in 1898. The changes she saw in her lifetime must have been mind boggling. I have pictures of her when she was young, maybe early 20’s. In some of the pictures she is standing with her sisters and in other pictures with my future grandfather. I don’t know all that much about them. I did meet all of my grandmother’s sisters, her brothers and her mother, my great grandmother, when I was young. My grandmother was tall. My grandfather was not. She stooped. I remember her wearing day dresses, thick heeled shoes and stockings. She had a wire cart she pulled behind her to the First National three houses away at the end of her street. Those grandparents lived in the same town we did, but we didn’t see them much. My father did. He dropped by usually on a Saturday. I do remember dinner there one Thanksgiving night when I was young. They had a dining room filled with furniture, all of it heavy and dark. I remember one low hutch across one wall, doors to the yard on another and a cabinet on the third. Despite how little time we spent there, I can still see every room up and down, including the cellar, in my mind’s eye. As for my grandparents, I remember them less and less each year.

The morning is lovely. The sun is bright in a cloudless blue sky. It is 74˚, a perfect temperature. Every now and then a leaf at the end of a branch flutters, from a puff of air, not even close to a gust.

I do have one item on my dance card, practice tonight at 6.

Yesterday I did make it to the dump. It was quite the place to be. I had to bypass the recycle area as both lanes were filled with cars so I dumped the heavy bags and decided I could recycle another day. The dump is closed until Thursday.

This morning I couldn’t find Nala in the backyard. I knew she had no way out of the yard, no holes to China and no open gate, but she wasn’t there which made no sense. I called frantically. No Nala. I went into the house in case she was upstairs watching the cats, one of her daily diversions. She wasn’t. Henry and I went back outside. All of a sudden running at breakneck speed came Nala from somewhere at the back of the yard. She ran at Henry and the two of them took off chasing each other. I looked around. Yup, a new box had been torn apart. Nala had ignored me out of a weird sense of dog guilt, and the yard and she are dark so I didn’t see her hidden in the back, tall grass. Of course, I had picked up the rest of the trash earlier. Nala has a perfect sense of timing.

Tomorrow is the first day of fall. I remember when I was a kid, and the early mornings started to get cool. The sun was bright but took longer to heat up the day. The shards of sunlight fell between the leaves and made shadows on the long sidewalk, the straightaway to school. On some of the trees, a single leaf or two had already changed color, mostly to red. The afternoons were still warm, in the 70’s. I remember walking home with my jacket, the one my mother had made me take, either unzipped or stuffed into my school bag.

Soon enough all the leaves will change. I always think of all that beauty and color as Mother Nature’s last gasp before the drab and cold winter. I remember gutters filled with piled leaves and sidewalks covered in red and yellow. Our lawn didn’t have a whole lot of fallen leaves. The side trees were fir, but my father, though, dutifully raked every Saturday. He had a pattern from back to front. He raked from the sides to make one giant pile of leaves he’d rake down the grassy hill, the same hill we always rode our bikes down. From there the leaves were raked into the gutters below the long sidewalk. The last part, the burning of the leaves, was my favorite part of this Saturday ritual. I always hung around for the burning of the leaves. There were fires up and down the street, all monitored by men with rakes. The smoke rose into the air in streams from the individual piles. I can close my eyes and vividly see it all. I can remember the sweetness of the smell of the burning leaves. Fall has always been my favorite season.

My house was TP’ed yesterday, inside. I went out a couple of times. The first time, after my uke concert, I went home. Everything was just fine. I fed the besties, let them out, changed my clothes and went to Event the Second. It was a birthday/barbecue for a friend’s son. I stayed for a few hours, chatted, drank a couple of mimosas and ate the best barbecue. When I got home, I saw white TP all over downstairs, some tiny, soaked pieces, some huge pieces of the roll and finally the dead cardboard roll itself. I say dead because it had no paper. That was all over the floor. Miss Nala had taken a full roll of toilet paper from the upstairs bathroom, not usually her hunting spot. What amuses Nala always surprises me. She did bring a few stolen goods back to the deck from the yard this morning, but many more remain. I am going to the dump today so maybe I need to pick up all the cardboard and paper in the yard. Then again, maybe not.

The house is quiet during morning nap time. Nala is here with me while Henry is upstairs on my bed, or rather our bed. The cats too are sleeping, but I am only guessing about Jack. I didn’t see him when I gave Gwen morning treats, filled her water bowl and gave her a few cans of cat food. I put some in Jack’s dish too, but Gwen may get there first.

When I was a kid, I hated feeding Duke. He got two cans of dog food every day. It took effort to use the can opener, the silver one almost every kitchen in American had. Slicing a finger was always a possibility. Still is. I slit a finger last week on a dog food can top. The last reason and the most overwhelming was the smell. That food looked and smelled disgusting. I’d plop it into Duke’s dish, break it up a bit and then put the dish down. Duke had been circling while impatiently waiting. He’d immediately attack his food as if it had been days since he’d last eaten. My two dogs do the same thing now. Henry is food motivated. Nala is still a puppy who eats everything. This morning the three of us shared a banana. They looked disappointed. I think they were hoping for Cocoa Puffs.

I’m writing this in the wee hours. Today I will be busy from around 11 until late afternoon. I do hate busy.

The only thing I did on Sunday was vacuum downstairs which has become a daily chore. Wispy balls of Henry hair with a few from Nala thrown in for texture and color rise into the air with the slightest movement. I vacuum. They reappear. I walk down the hall. They fly. I grab the vacuum again.

I never noticed my mother cleaning the house. She did it while I was in school. I did know when she’d done laundry as it was hung out on the lines in the backyard. I loved the smell of fresh sheets dried on the line. My mother ironed. I remember she ironed my father’s handkerchiefs. They were rectangles when she was finished. He kept one in his back pocket, and he always used it.

I have an iron. It was a house warming gift in 1977. It works perfectly. I know because I had to iron napkins a few months ago after they exited the dryer quite wrinkled. I used to iron clothes for work. I’d set up the ironing board in the den and watch TV while I ironed. I once ironed a tablecloth. The logistics alone were trying. I keep my iron near at hand in the cabinet under the sink just in case it is needed. It is a steam iron.

Sometimes I wish I had a tree house or a yurt in my backyard. People used to have summer kitchens. I’d like a vacation house under or in the trees in my backyard.

I don’t like black licorice, but I do like Good and Plenty. I also like the Chuckle’s black jelly square. I pick out and eat all the black jelly beans in any assortment. Once I was given a bag of just black jelly beans. It was bliss. I love anise cookies. My uncle used to make them every Christmas. I have his recipe. He said to use anise oil. I always do. I’ve even been known to throw down a shot of Sambuca. I don’t choose to reconcile this apparent contradiction. Life should have some mystery.

It has started lightly raining. I can hear drops on the leaves from the opened window behind me. The rain is unexpected, but it’s nice, a sweet rain, a calming rain.

Today is a pleasant day. I can’t remember the last time I used pleasant to describe anything, but that nondescript adjective is the perfect word for now. It is hot, 77˚, and cloudy and sunny and humid. Rain is predicted for tomorrow. The breeze is ever so slight. The dogs are chasing each other up and down the hall and on and off the couch where I’m sitting. I wish I knew why they chase each other here rather than outside in the huge, fenced in backyard with entry through a dog door. Maybe they think it fun to annoy me sitting here minding my own business.

Henry has been amazing. He now goes out the dog door whenever a delivery comes instead of standing at the door snarling and barking and scaring the delivery men who won’t come down the walk. To Henry, I just have to say, “Out,” and out he goes where he waits impatiently looking through the dog door for me to let him back inside the house.

Henry is now an explorer. After nearly four years living here, he came to the other side of the den yesterday for the first time. He never went beyond the chair arm before this, and he did it twice yesterday and once this morning, no fluke. Also, I can now walk by Henry when he is eating, and he won’t run. He does look at me but ignores me and goes right back to eating. Nala has helped. She has no filters. She is pure puppy. Henry is heavily filtered but is changing. He is less fearful, quicker to accept visitors, and he doesn’t bark anymore at the sound of car doors closing or people walking by the house, but he does check them out at the front door. That’s perfect. He is protective without being crazed.

I remember Duke frantically barking and jumping at the front door during a hurricane when someone walked by the house. My mother told us to hold his collar so he couldn’t go through the door. Boxers are all muscle so it took my brother and me to hold him and pull him back from the storm door so we could shut the inside door. I still wonder why this guy was out walking around during a hurricane. I watched from the window as he went down the street and took a left. Duke barked until the guy was out of sight. I always felt protected by Duke. I also feel protected by Henry. Nala will soon follow as she gets older. Crazed, barking dogs are such good deterrents.