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The morning is cloudy and still a bit night chilly. Yesterday was a delight. Today is predicted to be sunny and even warmer than yesterday. Earlier, the sun poked out for a bit, and I saw sky blue between the trees. I’m hoping they’ll be back as I need to go out and do a few errands. I’m going to Agway for mums and canned food for Jack. Gwen’s special food came yesterday. It was gone this morning. I hope Jack didn’t eat it. His dish of food is up high where it is safe from Gwen who can’t jump.

I can’t find my English muffins. I thought they were safe from the felonious Nala. I’ll have to check the yard for the tell tale wrapping. She is brazen. Nothing is safe.

The two dogs are eating each other on the couch. Nala has Henry’s neck, and Henry has Nala’s lower jaw. They keep bumping into me. I shoo them off, and they come back.

When I was a kid, I never thought of my life as humdrum. It had a pattern. Every weekday was school, but I never groused. That would have been useless. Years and years of school were still ahead of me. After school, the afternoons were mine. I rode my bike or took a hike into the woods below my house. We buried our turtle there under a special tree. The turtle had come from Woolworth’s and lasted years in his bowl on the counter, a plastic oval bowl with an island and a palm tree. That turtle loved flies with a little life and moving in the water. Much later, the woods were bulldozed to make room for senior apartments. My grandmother lived in one. My father always called it wrinkle city. The turtle had been buried in a small metal tin. Wherever they dumped the dirt, they must have dumped the tin.

A lizard used to live in my house in Ghana. The ceilings were really high, and in the living room there were two small square windows at the top of the front wall. The lizard lived in one of them. I didn’t care. The lizard was welcome, but my cat had a different idea. Whenever the lizard was close enough, my cat tried to catch it, but the lizard saved itself by scurrying up the wall. I think I had a soft spot for the lizard because when I first got to Ghana, I saw the lizards and was amazed. Seeing those green lizards was my first African moment. One day I saw the lizard under a chair. I grabbed it thinking I was a mighty hunter. I was going to put the lizard outside to save its life, but I was too late. When I lifted the lizard, it was missing its upper body including its head. I tossed it outside. I passed the title of mighty hunter to my cat.

The weather is still fall perfect. The high will be 68˚. The sky is partly sunny and party cloudy. I’ll try to stay on the sunny side. Gwen is hiding. She is usually sitting on the floor waiting for me. I did find her under the bed, but I didn’t pull her out. I have to give her insulin so I’ll try again in a bit to get her to surface, but I don’t want to stress her. I suspect her hiding is because of my having taken her to the vets yesterday.

This Friday I am getting a plethora of shots: flu, pneumonia and shingles.

I remember getting the smallpox vaccine before I could go to school. My doctor gave it to me close to the top of my left leg. He said he didn’t want for me to have a scar on my arm, the usual spot for the needle. The vaccine was not a shot; instead, it was on the surface. The needle pricked the skin. I remember it bled a bit, but what I remember the most is part of my scab was torn off by a branch while I was playing. I cried. I thought I’d have to get it again. I didn’t.

Before we left for Ghana, we were given yellow fever shots. In Ghana we had a medical day not long after we arrived. Table after table had, I think, nurses ready to give us the shots. I didn’t know so many shots existed. I thought they’d run out of spots for the needles. We also drank polio vaccine and got a gamma globulin shot on the butt. The only medical pieces we were responsible for taking were anti-malaria pills every week. We took Aralen, chloroquine. I did stop taking it during the dry season as there were no bugs. Peace Corps would have been unhappy bugs or no bugs.

While I was in Ghana, there was a cholera epidemic. I had two cholera shots but got a mild case anyway. By mild I’m talking lying on the bathroom floor close to the toilet hoping for only one problem orifice at a time. That was as sick as I’ve ever been. I was in Niamey, Niger by the Sahara.

My dance card has only a couple of events: CVS on Friday and Hyannis on Sunday with the uke band. I have uke practice today and a lesson tomorrow. Without my uke, I’d seldom leave the house. My sister’s birthday is today, and I surprised her by playing Happy Birthday, picking the notes on my uke. She was delighted that I had learned it just for her.

Today is the perfect fall day, sunny and warm. The high today will be 68˚. Gwen and I are heading to the vets for a 10:30 appointment where I’ll learn how to give her the insulin injections. After that, the rest of the day is open. I may scour the yard’s back forty hoping to find missing items.

We’re back from the vets. It was easier than I expected to give Gwen her needle because it is so tiny. The vet had me practice using water. Gwen didn’t notice. I have to go to CVS to get her insulin and needles. I already ordered her special prescription food and treats at Chewy. Gwen goes back next week for a day of testing. Nala goes back for a booster. I’m thinking to add to it all by getting my flu shot.

Last night the Red Sox game was riveting, all thirteen innings. I jumped up, screamed and applauded the walk off two run homer. It scared Henry.

When I was a kid, you could get a day of game Red Sox ticket for anywhere in the park. I remember sitting in a box seat by the Sox dugout for a couple of games. I also remember the bleachers, the cheapest places to sit. We used to take the bus then the subway to Fenway. Sometimes we had money for a hot dog. Mostly we just bought peanuts. The bleachers were the most fun. They were filed with raucous fans, many of them my age, a kid’s age. Giant number one fingers seemed to be the most popular souvenirs. They were also good for hitting people on their heads without causing any damage.

My father was a football and hockey fan. He watched the Sox but always seemed to get bored. He hated basketball, the Celtics, and most times I listened to the games on my transistor radio. When the Celts played on the west coast, I had to have the sound way low so I wouldn’t get caught listening to the game when I should have been sleeping. I loved listening to Johnny Most, the radio announcer. When I could watch, I used to turn off the TV volume and put on the radio and Johnny. He made us excited about every play, every game.

Last year I bought a Halloween costume for Henry. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I couldn’t help myself. The costume is a spawn of Satan. I’m hoping Nala will be a bit more receptive. I’ll try it on her closer to Halloween. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.

Today is an ugly day. It is cold, dark and damp. Showers are predicted for later. My concert is cancelled but not my trip to the dump as it is closed the next three days, and my car is already filled with trash and wet cat litter and probably flies.

My living room has been ravaged by a four legged marauder. I noticed today that a wooden figure from Ghana is gone, and a small pottery tagine from Morocco is missing its top. I’ll have to go through the yard and hope to find the missing items.

This morning I dusted places which haven’t seen the light of day for probably years. I hadn’t meant to dust, but I just couldn’t leave it. I used my sweatshirt sleeve, my handy dust rag. I found small chunks of peat my sister had given me. I lit one, and the aroma brought me back to one of my trips to Ireland, the one with my parents, my grandfather and two aunts, a tour group of sorts. We stayed a night in Youghal, a beautiful seaside town where some of Moby Dick was filmed. The place where we stayed was really old. The stairs to the rooms were worn and dipped in the middle. The dining room had a fireplace where peat was burning. The TV room had a small TV and rows of mismatched chairs facing the TV. My room had a saloon door for the bathroom. It was funny as you could see the toilet below the saloon door. My bed slouched in the middle. If you tried to sleep on one side or the other, you rolled to the middle. In the morning, while we were having breakfast, a parade of kids dressed in their uniforms went to school. I think I counted five or maybe six kids. That B&B is still among my favorite places where I’ve stayed.

This blog is a repository of my memories, the memories of my childhood and my wanderings. Ghana plays big because it has influenced all of my days since then. When I got to Ghana, I was only twenty-one. I was wide-eyed and took in everything, amazed I was in Africa. I remember training started the second day. My room in Winneba, our first stop, was on the second floor. I could look out over the town, and I remember being excited seeing my first palm trees. The ocean was a short walk away. Breakfast was the best meal because we could identify what we were eating. We couldn’t at dinner.

I etched all of those all those wondrous experiences into my memory bank so I’d never forget. Even now, I can touch it all. I can see and hear it. I see women in colorful cloths carrying babies on their backs. I can hear the tribal languages in the market and the calls to me, to the obruni, to the white person. I remember the market smells, the goats and the goat dung. When I close my eyes, I can see my whole town as it was.

When I finally returned, Bolga was far different, but I didn’t care. I was home for a while.

The wind is intermittently strong enough to bend branches and twirl leaves. The morning is fall cold, the sort of cold which disappears as the day gets older. The sun is bright but not quite warm enough. It is a sweatshirt day.

When I walk through the house, I find small chewed pieces of branches and pine cones and even a few brown leaves dangling from a small branch. Nala brings them inside through the dog door, but because she always goes in and out that door, I pretty much ignore her comings and goings. Henry is using the dog door every now and then. This morning he came in to watch me get the papers.

I had Frosted Flakes for breakfast. If I had been sitting on the floor watching TV while I was eating, I could have been ten again watching Creature Double Feature. I am watching a science fiction movie which, at best, is a B-movie. It is called Monsters of War. The monsters are dinosaurs, hungry dinosaurs. The movie is in color. It needs to be black and white. It fits.

My dance card has a few items. One is the dump, but I’ll save that for tomorrow. It gives me something to look forward to says I with tongue in cheek. The others are uke concerts, today and tomorrow. I’ll have to bundle up.

When I was a little kid, my Saturdays, after breakfast and a movie, were unplanned. In the winter, I could go to a matinee up town. On warmer Saturdays I’d roam on my bike, no destination in mind. My mother never asked where I was going once she saw my bike. She knew I didn’t know.

I liked the back roads of my town. I’d pick a direction. I had stops. One was the horse barn behind the town hall. The horses were in stalls. I could see their heads from the doorway. Another stop was the zoo. I’d watch the mountain goats and deer in the first exhibit, one you could see from the sidewalk. There were rocky hills to climb for the goats. I remember being amazed to see a couple of goats at the very top just standing there surveying their world. Another direction led to the next town and Lake Quannapowitt. Sometimes I’d circle the lake. Other times I’d just bike home a different way. I remember the train station near the church. The golf course was in another direction. I’d walk my bike along the side of the road looking for errant golf balls. I often found one on someone’s lawn across the street.

I was gone all day on Saturdays. I cherished the day because Sunday was a wasted day to me with church in the morning and having to stay close to home waiting for dinner in the afternoon. After dinner, we’d watch some TV before going early to bed. I remember westerns.

Today is supposed to be the nicest day of the week, warm and sunny. Already it is a pretty day with the bluest of blue skies. Nothing is moving, not even the leaves at the ends of the branches. I have to do a couple of errands today and maybe I might just take a ride, a tourist ride with gawking and a craning neck. I just won’t stop for souvenirs.

Yesterday I took Gwen to the vets. Her back leg flails. She got checked, and the vets asked a few questions. I asked her what she thought. She said the symptoms seem to indicate diabetes. Gwen got lab tests. The vet called this morning. The diagnosis is verified. I have to bring Gwen in on Monday so I can learn how to give her injections. She’ll also have special food. I have to figure out how to give Jack his regular food while Gwen gets her very expensive canned food. I’m toying with feeding Jack up high as Gwen can’t jump so well with her back leg. The vet said the leg might improve but it doesn’t always. Poor baby!

One time Duke, my childhood dog, got mauled on the neck by a huge dog from down the street. My father said he’d heal and didn’t need the vets. Nobody disagreed. A day or two later my father left for the week. At that time he was working in Maine and only coming home for weekends. My mother immediately took Duke to the vet’s. He got stitches and antibiotics. Duke’s neck looked good when my father got home. He commented and said, “See! I told you he would get better.” Nobody said a word. My mother just smiled and agreed.

When I was growing up, my mother never made fancy food. My father was the poster boy for meat and potatoes and a canned vegetable or two. I liked the canned peas and niblet corn. I didn’t like the creamed corn. I thought it looked disgusting as if it had been eaten then rejected. We only had fresh veggies in the summer. Mostly it was corn for all of us and local tomatoes for my father. His snack was to slice them, put them on a plate and add a healthy dollop of mayo. He yummed his way to the end. My father was a yummer. I remember we were eating seafood in a coastal town in Portugal. We ordered the shell fish. There were even razor clams. My father ate those, and he yummed his way through all of the rest.

When I looked out the door this morning, the old nursery rhyme came to mind. I can remember my mother saying it to me:

It’s raining, it’s pouring, 
    The old man’s snoring. 
He got into bed 
    And bumped his head 
And couldn’t get up in the morning.

The rain started last night and continues this morning. It is supposed to rain all day into the night. I don’t mind. My to-do list is tiny. I’m actually going to finish the laundry, only two loads left. This is a monumental achievement.

Both dogs have been in and out. Nala is soaked. Henry is wet. He isn’t out as long. Speaking of Henry, we have breakthroughs. He actually went on the other side of the couch. It sounds weird I know, but Henry had chosen his side of the room and never strayed beyond. He even walks on the other side of the room now. Yesterday he came in the dog door. May wonders never cease!

Yesterday I had hot dogs for dinner, in the usual top loading rolls. I added cheese, mustard and red pepper relish. Much later, I made cinnamon toast as a snack. I felt five again.

When I was a kid, I never minded the rain. I’d get soaked walking to and from school. I remember taking off my shoes and finding my socks were so wet they made footprints on the floor. It was sort of fun until my mother made me take them off. Sometimes we’d play in the cellar on rainy days. I remember every part of that cellar. On one side was the black oil tank. The window on that side of the cellar was at the top of the foundation and was square and tiny. I could see dust in the ray of sunlight coming through the window. The rest of that side of the cellar was open. On the back wall was my father’s rack, the one he built. It had two shelves, one on the floor and the other close to the ceiling. They were attached to two side pieces of wood one of which always hung at a tilt. On the bottom were cans of paint. Nothing was on the top. We couldn’t reach it. My father always said he didn’t have the right tools. We knew better.

The weather was perfect yesterday. Today will be the same. I’m going to Hyannis, the big city. I hope I don’t look like a rube.

Yesterday was a banner day. I finally did my laundry, three larger than life loads. Now I know where all my clothes have been hiding. Hauling the piles up two flights of stairs was the worst part. One load is still in the dryer. I just couldn’t carry another load. I’ll finish tomorrow. I do feel accomplished.

When I was a kid, we went to Boston a few times a year: in the summer and near Christmas. In the summer, It was usually on a Sunday. I remember going to the Public Garden, sitting by the lagoon and being amazed at how friendly the squirrels were, coming up and begging for peanuts which, conveniently, were sold from carts on the street. The squirrels would come up to us, and we could feed them by hand. I was thrilled. I was feeding wildlife. We’d take a ride on the swan boats. I was impressed that they were powered by pedaling. In the middle of the lagoon was a swan’s nest. I never saw eggs or baby swans, but I did see the couple, the adult swans, swimming together.

Our winter trip to Boston was for Christmas. We’d go look at the decorated store windows and the Boston Common where all the trees were filled with lights. I remember once my father bought us roasted chestnuts from a cart. I wasn’t particularly impressed. They tasted awful. Our next trip to Boston was to go to Jordan Marsh to see Santa and the Enchanted Village. My mother took us by bus to Sullivan Square and then we took the subway to get to Boston. That was always so exciting, the subway and Santa in one day.