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.

Last night I fell asleep on the den couch. Thunder woke me and the two dogs who were sleeping beside me. It was a rolling thunder which just kept going and going. Both dogs checked the ceiling then the window. It started pouring. The top of the couch was already wet. Both dogs took a seat, one on each side of me, and leaned. Neither one moved until the thunder stopped. It was five and still dark. The three of us, Nala, Henry and I, went back to sleep to the sound of the rain on the window behind the couch.

The rain is intermittent, and more thunder showers are predicted. The morning is chilly and damp at 67˚, the high for the day. I had planned a dump run, but I’m postponing that until tomorrow. Nothing about the day is inviting. The only item on today’s dance card is a nap. Now, that is inviting.

Yesterday I watched a video of a ride through Bolga, my town in Ghana. I named the places out loud I recognized as the video played. The Hotel d’Bull is still a hotel but has been renamed, air conditioned and reconfigured including a small internet cafe of sorts, maybe four computers, in what was once part of a bar. In the courtyard the blank, white wall on which movies were shown is gone as are the tiers of concrete seats facing the wall. The Hotel d’Bull was my night out. I’d buy a roof seat across from the screen. I sat at a round metal table with matching chairs, almost patio chairs except they were on the roof of a hotel in Africa, in Bolga. During the evening I bought dinner and a couple of Cokes. Dinner was a kabob for 20 pesewas, about 20 cents. The Coke was the same. I was brought a basin and water before and, later, after dinner so I could wash my hands. It still is the custom in some places, mostly on the road in chop bars, what they call local eateries in Ghana.

The video went a bit down the Bawku road, to the east, and up the Navrongo road, to the north. I had spent part of my training in Bawku teaching middle school and living with my Ghanaian family. I had friends in Navrongo, and I passed through the town on my way to what used to be Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, and Ougadougou. The road from my house to Navrongo is still my favorite road in all of Northern Ghana. It is lined with trees. I was told mahogany trees. They were planted and are equally distant apart. In the rainy season they are covered in leaves which shade the road. People walk on both sides. Women carry goods to market. Old men walk with canes. Every village, even small ones, have a market day so people are always walking.

I want one more trip to Ghana. Economic austerity begins now.

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.