The morning is damp, cloudy and a bit chilly. It will be warm today, around 76˚, and we are almost there at 75˚, but the air still holds the dampness. A breeze blows leaves and high branches and is helping to keep the day a bit cool. I have no plans for outside today. I have a list, an inside list. The laundry needs to come up from the dryer as it has been there long enough for everything to wrinkle. The kitchen floor is covered in muddy dog prints all the way from the door down the hall. I’ll do a quick mopping. When I walk into the cats’ room, it sounds as if I’m walking on the beach with all the sand the cats kick out of the litter boxes. Vacuuming is on the list. I’m also thinking a nap might be a great idea.

My eye is still mending. One side is painful, but it mostly hurts only if I look to the right. Okay, time for a fun question: why would I look to the right if it hurts?

One afternoon in Ghana, there was knock on my front door. The door was open to the screen, and when I looked, I saw a man I didn’t know. I went to the door and asked him what he wanted. He said an American woman, me. I told him no. He then asked me if I knew any Canadian women. Again, I said no. He said thank you and left. Ghanaians are quite polite.

My two years in Ghana were when Peace Corps was still young. The first volunteers went to Ghana in August of 1961, a few short months after Peace Corps was founded. When I got there in 1969, the Peace Corps was still evolving. We were told not to call them. They would call us. We could go wherever we wanted, even out off the country, without telling Peace Corps. I lived a long way from Accra, the capital of Ghana, so I went to north to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso for weekends, sort of short vacations, but the country I loved to visit the most was Togo. Lomé is its capital. The city was filled with the most amazing shops. It had boulangerie pâtisseries. The windows were filled with bread and pastries. I salivated when I saw them.  I always bought gooey, wonderful desserts. Other shops sold crème glacée, ice cream. In Togo, French is the national language. I knew all the words for food in French. As for the rest, I was limited to hello, thank you, numbers for bartering and asking for directions though I didn’t always understand the answers. I was big on left and right, gauche et droite.

I can still order an entire meal in French.

Just as I woke up, the rain started but fell for only about five minutes. It left the morning damp, dark and still. I haven’t turned on any lights. The dark house is comforting in a strange way. The dogs ran the yard. Nala ran the perimeter. Henry ran to the brush, squatted then ran back again. My kitchen floor is filled with wet, dirty paw prints.

Today will be warm, 76˚. The low will be in the 60’s. All the windows are open. I can feel the dampness.

Last night was a wonderful evening. The first part was spent with catching up and grazing at the charcuterie board. I thought the board was artistic. My friend thought it beautiful; of course, I didn’t think to take a picture. The board was groaning, filled as it was with meat and cheese, spreads, cinnamon bread, cashews, crackers and gherkins. I rolled all the meat and cheese and covered watermelon with prosciutto. I used my new little bowls, well new last winter, and their bright colors enhanced the food and the board.

Next came the Christmas carols and presents. I was delighted with my presents. I will look through them again today. That is part of the fun of presents. Nala was delighted with the paper. She thought it a toy. We decided on Thai food for dinner, and it was scrumptious. We ate all of it except the beef dish which Nala pulled off the counter and finished. I think she liked the veggies.

The wonderful part of last night was spending it with friends. The evening felt so normal just to sit there and laugh and joke with each other. Henry was on his best behavior. Jay could not believe how changed he is from when they last saw him. He stayed in the room with us. Nala wasn’t on her best behavior. She was a puppy. She tried to sit on laps, grab the food on the table and beg a bit. She enjoyed the company.

Last night, I didn’t sleep well. The pain in my eye woke me up several times. I think all the shopping and preparing were at fault. This morning, though, my eye was easy to open, not as gunky (sorry for the graphic description). I think it is on the mend. Today I’ll help it along by doing nothing. I excel at doing nothing.

I am writing this on Wednesday night because the electric company will be working on my street tomorrow and will turn off the electricity somewhere between nine and one, my blog time. I could wake up really early and write it, but I enjoy sleeping and hate the intrusion of an alarm. Even the dogs jump when one goes off.

I do have a new story. Last night, that would be Tuesday, I was out with the dogs. Nala was being Nala and trying to get under the wire fence protecting the strawberries, or rather where the empty strawberry plants are, so I went to Nala and the fence in the dark and bent down to close it. I couldn’t see so I missed the upended tomato cage on the fence post when I bent down. One spike hit my eye. It hurt enough that I sat on the ground and put my hand over my eye and moaned for a while, a longish while. After the pain had subsided a bit, I got up and went inside. This morning my eye was really painful. There was blood on the eyelid and below the eye. I went to my uke lesson anyway but left half-way through. I called my ophthalmologist and was told to come on over. By then my eye was bloodshot and a black and blue had appeared in the corner by my eye. Come to find out I had lacerations on the left side and a puncture on the right. I was given an antibiotic, told to use cold compresses, and that it would take a few days to heal. It is painful and ugly and more, but I’ll leave out the graphic details. I have decided that Nala can now dig to China, and I will not interfere.

Friends are coming to dinner on Thursday. I have chosen the menu, written the shopping list and finished my flow chart, but after the eye fiasco, I decided I would just do the appetizer, a charcuterie board, but have the rest of the dinner delivered. I won’t tell my friends until they arrive as they would insist on postponement. I can be a wonderful hostess. I just can’t roll my eye or look sharply left or right.

When I was a really little kid, I fractured my wrist jumping off a fence backwards. I do remember the fence, a wire fence gate, and the cast, but I don’t remember the fall. Once I fell off a ladder when washing windows and broke a bone in my elbow. That was 25+ years ago. Since then, I have been lucky when I fall. Knock on wood!!

Last night got cooler around midnight, down to 71˚, but the humidity hung around. For late afternoon today a thunderstorm is predicted. We haven’t had rain for a while so the storm is welcome. I love the rumble of thunder and the flashes of lightning. I remember when I was a kid I used to watch out the window hoping to see jagged lightning across the sky. I’d count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, five seconds a mile. Storms never scared me. The more tremendous the storm the better I liked it. That hasn’t changed. I still wow at thunder and lightning.

When I was a kid, my family played games together. The games we played the most when I was little are Go to the Head of the Class and Candy Land. I still have our old Go to the Head of the Class game. The booklet is yellow, but the pieces are intact. My brother always wanted to be Cowboy Joe. I was Bonnie. The favorite of all which even followed me into adulthood is Sorry. I introduced it to my friends. They love and hate the game. Nothing is worse than being close to winning and have your opponent get a Sorry card and happily knocked you back to start. Cursing is an appropriate response.

My friends are coming to dinner on Thursday. It has been so long since I last saw them I told them to wear flowers in their hair. I will plan the menu today and shop tomorrow. For myself, I don’t cook so much. I eat fruit or crackers and cheese, a sandwich or hot dogs, my most elaborate meals of late. If I am feeling especially energetic, I toast the rolls and add cheese.

When I was a kid, my favorite lunch meat was bologna. I’d cut it from the roll, add chopped hot peppers and slather it with mustard, the old stand by yellow mustard. The bread was always soft and squishy. Sometimes the pepper juice leaked through the middle of the sandwich. That just made it tastier.

The high today is 82˚, the current temperature. The low will be 58˚. I can hardly wait to feel cold.

The morning is so humid I sweat when I walk. It is not a pretty picture. The day is overcast, and it is still a bit foggy. Currently it is only 74˚but as we say around here it isn’t the heat but the humidity. I have to go out later. The dump is calling.

Yesterday I finished my laundry hauling three loads up two floors. I cleaned the cats’ room, my daily chore. I cleaned up the glass of tea I hit which spread all over the table and the newspapers. I also cleaned in and around the animal treats when I knocked one of the containers off the shelf. I picked up what broke and the treats on the floor. Going down one step at a time, I brought the storm door to the cellar. It was so heavy I had to keep stopping, but at least the screen is in the front door giving the house some fresh air. The backdoor screen needs to be repaired. I whacked my hand on the door knocker, and it hurt. I sat on the stairs, covered my eyes and moaned. Nala came over and gave me a hug. That was the best part of the day.

When I was a kid, I don’t think I ever really noticed the heat or the humidity. Nothing stopped me from enjoying summer days. Sweat was just one of those things. I didn’t ever give it much thought. I’d even used my blouse to dry my hair. I got grimy. Yesterday, I relived my childhood and got grimy. It wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant.

Africa was hot. The first blast of heat hit me when I exited the plane upon my arrival. I lived in the hottest part of the country. 100˚ was a dry season average, but I was still young enough to abide the heat without a fan. I even took a nap sometimes in the afternoon when many things, including the post office, closed for a couple of hours during the hottest part of the day. My students had a rest period in the dorms which all had to abide. During the hottest nights, I slept outside on the concrete in my yard on the mattress from my bed. A cold shower was a welcome end to every day.

When I first moved into my house, I often slept downstairs during the summer. A southern breeze came through the back door. I slept well. Now, I’m far older, and the heat and I do not abide each other. I started with a bedroom window air conditioner and a while back I air conditioned my whole house. I hate getting sweaty and grimy, but here I am getting ready to load my car for the dump. The heat has made me crazed.

This is my annual Father’s Day post. Many of you read it every year. It is about my amazing father, my funny and loving father. It brings back a rush of memories every time I read it. It makes me smile and long for my father. He was one of a kind in the best of all possible ways. This morning, as soon as I woke up, I wished him a Happy Father’s Day.

In my front garden are a couple of ground cover plants. They have been there for years. My father planted them for me. One weekend he and my mother came down to visit. My dad brought his lawn mower, a hand mower, garden tools and those few plants. While my mother and I shopped, my dad mowed the lawn in the front and the back. Both yards were fields no longer. He weeded the garden. I could see the flowers. The garden was lovely. I get to remember that weekend every time I go out the front gate and see my father’s plants. They touch my heart.

I have so many memories of growing up, of family trips and my dad trying to whack at us from the front seat and never succeeding, of playing whist in the kitchen, with the teams being my mom and me against my dad and brother, of Sunday rides, of going to the drive-in and the beach and of being loved by my dad. Memories of my dad are with me always, but today my memories are all of my dad, and my heart is filled to the brim with missing him. When I close my eyes, I see him so clearly.

On a warm day he’d be sitting on the front steps with his coffee cup beside him while reading the paper. He’d have on a white t-shirt and maybe his blue shorts. He’d wave at the neighbors going by in their cars. They all knew him and would honk back. He loved being retired, and we were glad he had a few years of just enjoying life.

He was the funniest guy, mostly on purpose but lots of times by happenstance. We used to have Dad stories, all those times when we roared and he had no idea why. He used to laugh along with us and ask, “What did I say? What did I say?” We were usually laughing too hard to tell him. He was a good sport about it.

I know you’ve heard this before, but it is one of my favorite Dad stories. He, my mom and I were in Portugal. I was driving. My dad was beside me. On the road, we had passed many piggyback tandem trucks, all hauling several truck loads behind them. On the back of the last truck was always the sign Vehiculo Longo. We came out of a gas station behind one of those. My father nonchalantly noted, “That guy Longo owns a lot of trucks.” I was laughing so hard I could barely drive and my mother, in the back seat, was doubled over in laughter.

My father wasn’t at all handy around the house. Putting up outside lights once, he gave himself a shock which knocked him off his step-ladder. He once sawed himself out of a tree by sitting on the wrong end of the limb. The bookcase he built in the cellar had two shelves, one on the floor and the other too high to use. He said it was lack of wood. When painting the house once, the ladder started to slide, but he stayed on his rung anyway with brush in hand. The stroke of the paint on the house followed the path of his fall. Lots of times he set his shoe or pant leg on fire when he was barbecuing. He was a big believer in lots of charcoal lighter fluid.

My father loved games, mostly cards. We played cribbage all the time, and I loved making fun of his loses, especially if I skunked him. When he won, it was superb playing. When I won, it was luck. I remember so many nights of all of us, including aunts and uncles, crowding around the kitchen table playing cards, especially hi-lo jack. He loved to win and we loved lording it over him when he lost.

My father always said he never snacked, and my mother would roll her eyes. He kept chocolate under the couch, hidden from everyone else, but, we, everyone else, knew. He loved Pilot Crackers covered with butter. Hydrox was his preferred cookie. His vanilla ice cream was always doused with Hershey’s syrup. That man did love his chocolate.

My father was a most successful businessman. He was hired to turn a company around and he did. He was personable and funny and remembered everyone’s names. Nobody turned him down.

My father always went out Sunday mornings for the paper and for donuts. He never remembered what kind of donut I like. His favorite was plain. He’d make Sunday breakfast when I visited: bacon, eggs and toast. I can still see him standing over the stove with a dish towel over his shoulders. He always put me in charge of the toast.

If I ever needed anything, I knew I could call my father. He was generous. When we went out to eat, he always wanted to pay and was indignant when we one upped him by setting it up ahead of time that one of us paid. One Christmas he gave us all $500.00, not as a gift but to buy gifts.

My father left us when he was far too young. It was sudden. He had a heart attack. I had spoken with him just the day before. It was pouring that day, and I told him how my dog Shauna was soaked. He loved that dog and told me to wipe his baby off. I still remember that whole conversation. I still miss my father every day. 

Rain was predicted, a shower, but this morning so far belies that prediction. The breeze is wonderful and cooling. The high will be 74˚. The sky is a light grey. The sun was here earlier but has since disappeared. I have plans to go out today, to the dump and to Agway. I just have to rev up enough energy.

Saturdays were the best days when I was a kid. The whole day was mine, and I always spent it wisely having fun and exploring. I knew all the streets in my town. I had my favorites. The street behind the town hall had the horses’ barn. I used to stand outside and checked the horses through the door. I always wished for a closer look. To get to the zoo, I always biked around Spot Pond which was a reservoir. I could see a small island from the road, and I dreamed of sneaking there and camping. That I had no boat and no camping equipment didn’t stop me from dreaming. My first view of the zoo was the rocky, grassy enclosure with mountain goats and some deer. The zoo was small, but I was a kid and didn’t notice. The animals held my attention. My favorite was the elephant. The Girl Scout Camp was in the woods across from the zoo. I used to go into the pine woods, follow the wide path and come out in the next town, on the Fellsway Way. I rode home from there.

My house in Ghana was up the hill just a short way from town. I used to borrow a bicycle and ride to the market. Downhill was easy. Uphill was a chore. I usually walked the bike part way home. Sometimes I took the school’s bus into town when the driver was picking up the mail, but I’d have to walk home. Usually, though, someone stopped and offered me a ride. I never turned them down. Most people in town knew me. I was one of only a handful of non-Ghanaians, of Europeans as the Ghanaians called any white people, who lived in Bolga. I never rode that bike anywhere except to town. If I needed to go further, I usually took a mammy lorry.

One year when I was much older, I think in my thirties, my parents bought me a bicycle for my birthday. I rode it on the bike trail to P-Town a few times. It was a long but pretty ride. I remember getting off the trail and going down some streets thinking they were a shortcut. I actually got lost on the back, unfamiliar roads, but I kept riding. I remember being cold and a bit nervous. It was getting dark. I finally came out at a spot I knew and hightailed it home.

My bike is still in the cellar. I haven’t used it in a long while. I like to think I might just haul it out of the cellar, jump on it, pedal and go for a long ride.

The morning is a delight. It will be a hotter day than it has been with a high of 75˚and a low of 68˚. The sun is wonderfully warm, the sky brilliant and there is nary a breeze. I enjoyed coffee this morning, and the cream wasn’t frozen. I even had a bagel with cream cheese.

It is such a quiet morning I can hear only the birds. This is my favorite sort of morning.

The dogs are driving me crazy. They chase each other all over the house. I’m okay with that until they jump on and off the couch where I am sitting. Nala growls and Henry chews. They have a wonderful time. I don’t.

When I was a kid, I would have loved today. It is a roaming day, a day for a bike ride. The uniform of the day would have been shorts and a sleeveless blouse, the style when I was a kid. I always had what my father used to call a trucker’s tan. It ended at the shoulder. I wore low white sneakers and socks, whatever pair I could find in my sock drawer. Color didn’t matter, and I was known to wear two different colored socks if they were all I could find. Style was never a concern when I was young. I didn’t even care if my white sneakers were scruffy and dirty. One of my favorites rides was to Wakefield, the next town over. I’d stop and sit in the bandstand for a bit then ride around the lake. The houses facing the lake were huge, and I always wondered what it was like to live in such luxury. I wasn’t so much envious as curious. My ride ended when hunger drove me home.

Yesterday I went to Agway to buy my plants. I had a list, but I didn’t buy plants. The parking lot was filled; instead, I bought animal stuff. The biggest and most expensive was a water fountain for the cats. They drink a lot of water, and this holds a gallon.I also bought a pink collar for Nala. At least one of us will be stylish.

On the cleaning front, the frenzy continues. When I walked into the kitchen this morning, the counter was shining. I felt a strange sense of accomplishment. When I was in the bathroom, I looked out and noticed the glass in the the hanging lantern over the big table was dusty. Yup, I took it down, washed, dried then rehung it. I have one more from the living room to wash. This frenzy has run amok.

The morning is perfect. It is still a bit chilly from last night, but the sun is so bright the day is quickly warming. It will be in the low 70’s today and the high 50’s tonight. I’m thinking that’s ideal.

My cleaning frenzy continues. Yesterday it was upstairs in the cat’ room and the bathroom. I even washed both floors. The kitchen floor no longer has a road-mark of paws. The hall is immaculate at least for a day. As for today, the den needs my attention. It is the room where we all hang out and the dog hair holds sway.

My fridge has been wonky. The ice maker stopped working. I was okay with that and bought ice until yesterday when I woke up to a fridge where everything was frozen. The small consolation was the ice maker worked. Luckily, the repairman came this morning. All is right with my world.

When I was a kid, everything was easy. My only responsibilities were school every day and wearing clean underwear when I went outside so I wouldn’t embarrass my mother in case I was in an accident. I liked school. As for clean underwear, it miraculously appeared in my bureau drawer every day. I thought it a bit like the elves and the shoemaker; however, because I was never in an accident, I did think all that clean underwear sort of went to waste.

When I was in Ghana, I appreciated my mother and the miracle of daily clean underwear. I had to wash mine in a bucket. Though I became proficient at washing my clothes in said bucket, it was not a talent I perpetuated, but I suppose it is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to do it, and I do have a metal bucket just in case.

I always had to take cold showers in Ghana. Hot water was a luxury, but I became proficient at washing my hair in the warm water which first came out of the shower head. The pipes had been warmed by the sun. During the dry season, the water was often turned off. I had three or so buckets which were kept filled and lined up against the shower walls. I took bucket baths when there was no shower water. The technique was easy. First my hair then the rest of my body. The last step was dumping the water over my head. It was wonderfully refreshing. It is also a talent I still have should it be needed.

The morning is humid, damp and dark. It rained earlier but not so much. A slight breeze stirs only the leaves at the ends of the branches. I’m tempted to put the screen in the front door but not yet the back door. That has to stay open for the dogs, and it still gets cold at night. Yesterday I went out for a time. Nala enjoyed herself. She surfed the baskets under the table and pulled out the strangest things like coasters, bottles and a couple of books. They were strewn all over. Not satisfied with one floor, Nala went upstairs to my bedroom. Luckily, the only things she found were grocery bags. They were in pieces all over the floor.

Last night wasn’t great for sleeping. The room was hot so I turned on the window air in my bedroom. Nala spread out and took my blankets with her. I got cold. Henry joined us, and I had no room. Usually they stay on their side, and I stay on mine, but not last night. Both sides were their sides. I had to fight for every inch.

When I was a kid, Duke, our boxer, wasn’t allowed on furniture. At night he sneaked on the couch to sleep but was never there when we came down the stairs in the morning. He was too smart to get caught. When Duke was young, he jumped out the window in Reading Square. My father stopped the car in the middle of the road and gave chase. Duke was caught. The other Duke story I remember was when we were visiting my aunt the nun. Duke was left in the car. He got bored. When we got back, strings of ceiling material hung down in front of the windows. Duke had chewed all along the from window to window. My father went crazy. I don’t remember what happened next. I think I erased it from my memory.

I don’t think my mother ever worried when we were gone all day. We’d pack our own lunches and take off for the whole day. Sometimes we walked. Other times we rode our bikes. We rode to East Boston once. That was the furthest we ever went. My mother was not happy, an understatement. I think the ride along the Revere highway scared her the most. We weren’t scared at all. There were sidewalks and lots of lights. We rode passed the dinosaur statue at the miniature golf course, the dog track, the tankers lined up at the oil terminal and the giant holy lady statue on the hill. We had taken that route more times than I can remember on the way to our grandparents’ house. It was as familiar as the streets in our town. My brother and I thought it was an adventure.