A storm is coming. It could be snow or rain or a combination, but it has started out as rain. The sky is a light grey but darkening. The wind is picking up. The trunks and tops of the pine trees are swaying. It is an ugly day all told.

This is sloth time. I haven’t anywhere I need to go. I have nothing I need to do. I’m staying in my flannel pants and sweatshirt, but I’m thinking that’s no different than most of my days. I’ll get off the couch for meals and the bathroom.

Henry naps during the day upstairs on my bed. Gwen still hides in the guest room, now Gwen’s room. Jack is upstairs sleeping near the heat. Given how big he is and how much fur he has, I would have thought he’d be naturally insulated.

I don’t like pancakes even with butter and syrup. Something about their consistency makes me gag. It is the same with waffles though I do love a waffle ice cream cone. My favorite breakfast is eggs over-easy, crispy bacon and dark rye toast, but I won’t turn my nose up at French toast. Once in a while I do love eggs Benedict or eggs Bennie, the more familiar title.

I am a pizza fan, but I don’t do Hawaiian pizza. It’s the pineapple. My favorite is one with caramelized onions and any sort of meat. I lean toward sausage or hamburger. I sometimes make pizza at home. All the ingredients are usually in my larder, and I do caramelize the onions.

My favorite ice cream changes. For a while it was mint chip. Coffee chip is my current favorite, and I have some in the freezer. When I eat my ice cream, it swims in coffee syrup, a treat from when I was a kid. My mother used to buy coffee syrup when I was a kid. It came from Rhode Island. We put it into milk. In some store, I don’t remember which, I saw coffee syrup and bought it. I have been putting a stream of it on my coffee chip ice cream.

The snow has just started, big fluffy, wet flakes I can hear hitting the roof. Hey Google says 2.2 inches on Cape Cod. When Google speaks, Henry always looks up.

Today is a lovely day, sunny but cold. The wind is strong. My dance card is still empty. It has been empty for so long it is yellowing. I haven’t been out for a couple of weeks. I’m amassing errands for my next venturing. So far I’m up to three. The dump isn’t one of them!

When I first woke up, I had to think what day it was. I could have asked Alexa, but I figured I’d give it a go. At first I toyed with it being Friday but then I remembered. It is Saturday.

I don’t know why I watch the news. I did try a Hallmark movie this morning, but it had the same plot as so many Hallmark movies. Girl and boy meet but don’t get along. They snipe at each other but the Hallmark sort of sniping which is gentle. They start to like each other. They kiss, the end of all Hallmark movies.

Henry barked at the door so I opened it for him. A garden flag by the front steps was blowing. Henry got so scared he ran to the kitchen. I sat on the stairs and tried to coax him to the door. He came close to my hand but not the door. I left the inside door open. He went back later.

I haven’t been to my hometown in a very long time. I talk to my sister often but haven’t seen her in forever. She is as careful as I am to keep herself safe.

When I was kid, we had a boxer named Duke. He was the smartest dog. He’d follow us to school sometimes and we’d tell him to sit. He’d sit, but every time we’d turn around, the distance between us wasn’t any greater. We never caught him.

My brother used to go camping in woods not so far away from our house. He always took Duke, but he had to tie Duke to a tree because Duke would run home if he could. One time, bigger, older kids threatened my brother at his camp. Duke started growling. A boxer growling is scary though they are the sweetest dogs in the world. The marauders didn’t know that. My brother said unless they left he would let the dog loose. They left.

Alexa predicted liquid sunshine today then explained it was rain. Thanks! I was perplexed, but she was right. When last I let Henry in, it was sprinkling. The rain has dampened my day, literally. I was going to brave the wide world today, but I might just stay inside and kept dry and warm.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t a lover of the rain. A storm always meant getting wet walking to school, but the worst was no recess.

I loved Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. I used to crumble Saltines with my hands and put them into the bowl. Saltines swell in water. The crumbs absorb all the soup. I always had a thick layer to eat through to get to the chicken and the noodles.

Fried dough was often a Friday supper. My mother would fry up the dough in her cast iron frying pan. We’d sit in the kitchen waiting, watching. My poor mother couldn’t cook fast enough. We’d slather the dough with butter which almost floated on the top of the dough. We all ate carefully but quickly.

My life is pretty boring right now. I don’t go out much so no new adventures. I don’t see friends as they are also staying home. Poor Henry escapes up stairs when I chat with him too long. Jack just falls asleep, so much for my patter, my rhetoric.

I don’t like swordfish or salmon. The pink of the salmon just doesn’t seem right somehow. I remember a British Air first class flight to Germany. We had been upgraded. They served salmon for lunch.

When I traveled to Europe, I always started or finished my trip in London. One trip we decide to take the ferry from Calais to Dover. We got to the ferry station and was surprised no one was there. We sat for a bit then asked. We were in the wrong place. We had to run with our bags across a huge, massive (my memory may be a bit off here. I might be thinking it was huge because of the running) parking lot. We just made it. They took up the ramp after we were aboard. When we arrived in Dover, we got on the train to London. We were only there a few days but we managed plays and shopping and eating well.

I haven’t ordered delivery in a couple of weeks. I am craving Chinese food.

Today’s weather is the same as yesterday’s. I think I might be caught in a time loop. I wouldn’t mind but I’d prefer to choose the time to loop. This morning started early for me, an unusual event. What was worse was I changed the cat litter, made my bed and took a shower, all before 10. That is far more industrious than I have been in days. I’m not a fan.

Speaking of weather, it was a little foggy this morning. The wind is blowing now and it is chilly. I saw a couple of snow flurries earlier, but only a few. It even looks as if we might have sun. It seems t6o be peeking through, and I think I see a bit of blue.

I have to go out today, the first time in a couple of weeks. My errand list is short.

When I was a kid, I got fifty cents allowance. I thought it was big money. Usually I spent it right away. Sometimes I bought a book which left me with a penny, useful back then. Sometimes I bought a couple of five cent candy bars and put the rest away to spend another day. I still have many of those books. My mother saved them and gave them to me when I bought my house. The pages in many of the books are yellow and brittle. I figure they should be after over sixty years.

I was in Ghana for 27 months. I didn’t have a radio. Nobody had a TV. Ghana has several daily papers, but the news is local. I loved reading those papers. They were a snapshot of Ghana, but everything in those papers was so graphic to me, but not so to the Ghanaians. I remember a front page picture of a dead man, a thief killed by his victim. I also remember my friends the Popps who were actually in a printed ad in one paper. There they were, two white people, clicking glasses while seated at a small table. It was an ad for whiskey.

Most of the time I didn’t know what was happening at home, but that didn’t bother me. I had a lack of curiosity about events so far away. Life at home went on without me, and I didn’t mind. I was living an amazing life.

Yesterday and last night it poured. Even now it is still raining. The temperature is 41˚, winter warm. I have no reason to leave the house so I’ll hang around, do a bit of dusting, water plants and eat the leftovers.

Henry goes out in the rain. He is not enthusiastic, but he does go with little prompting. My boxers hated the rain. They’d get to the door, poke their heads out then back into the kitchen. They would go out only when they couldn’t wait. Once during a snow storm, Gracie waited 16 hours to go out.

Even when I was a kid, I loved the rain. In the summer, I’d run around outside on a rainy day to get soaked. I always kept playing. Rain never interrupted summer fun.

In Ghana, during the rainy season, it rains every day. The days are cooler than during the dry season though cool only in comparison. I love the rainy season. When I’ve gone back to Ghana, it has been during the rainy season when the dust has disappeared, and the millet is green and tall. The rain never stopped me from going to town, especially on market day, every third day. I’d buy my tomatoes and eggs and hope for a surprise like when I found the watermelon. Sometimes, when the rain was heavy, I’d find shelter. One time I stood outside under the awning of a small shop. The owner saw me, invited me into her shop and brought me a chair. That is so Ghanaian. Other times the rain was soft and easily ignored. I just went about my errands knowing the sun would be back to dry my clothes.

My memory drawers sometimes send me a single image prompted by something I’ve seen or written. Talking about the rain flashed an image of me sitting on school steps under an overhang during a soft rain. I remember it was in Winneba where we stayed for the first two weeks of training. I was alone sitting on the steps. The rain had chased the other trainees to dry places. I sat, watched the rain and marveled. I think my mouth was opened in awe. I remember thinking I’m in Africa during my first rainstorm. I am actually in Africa.

When I woke up, the first thing I did was to look out the window to see how much snow we had gotten. None. The snow started around ten. It was a nor’easter blowing sideways and falling steadily, but it was a wet snow which has since turned into rain. I just hope it doesn’t freeze.

The wind will get tremendous with gusts up to 60 MPH. Right now it is calm. Only a few hanging brown leaves are fluttering.

I was going to take a Coffee break today. Staying inside makes for poor conversation. Jack and Henry have slept the morning away. I envy them. I wander from the den to the kitchen to the living room and sleeve dust as I go. Nothing holds my interest. Today I’m thinking I’ll clean out the fridge. Obviously I’ve gone over the edge. I’ve gone stir crazy.

Yesterday I made Sunday dinner for myself. I seasoned and baked the spatchcock chicken and added sweet potatoes to the oven with the chicken. I steamed pea pods. Dinner was delicious. It will be delicious again tonight and maybe even tomorrow night. What’s left will become chicken salad. Dinner becomes lunch.

When I was a kid and always after that, math was difficult for me. Arithmetic was easy just a bit of add, subtract, multiply and divide. I used to hide my fingers under my desk so I could use them. Once I started algebra I had nightmares of murderous polynomials chasing me. X was a scary unknown. Now, I’m back to arithmetic. I mostly add and subtract and don’t need my fingers any more. I haven’t ever used algebra.

Yesterday is today. Trust me here. I am not being metaphysical. I’m just talking about the weather. It is cold and cloudy, and I saw a couple of snow flurries earlier, loners I hope.

Winter is entrenched. Any 40˚ day feels tropical. Where did I put the sun screen just in case?

The last time I did any errands was over a week ago. Everything I need gets pretty much delivered now. Henry loves it. He barks and scares people. I don’t love it so much.

According to my electric company, I use more wattage than my neighbors. At first I cared, but after careful consideration, I stopped caring. Besides the den, the only other lights on at night are one in the living room and one over the sink in the kitchen. Here in the den it is a lamp, the TV and my computer. That doesn’t seem excessive. I figure I over-watt, to coin a word, because I am up until the wee hours burning electricity while the houses around me are dark and filled with sleeping people.

When I was in Ghana, Sunday meant a service at the school with hymns and a sermon. It was held in the dining hall from which the tables had been removed. When I first met the principal, she wanted to know if I had brought my bible with me. I told her I hadn’t, but I had parts of it memorized. One Sunday I was the sermon giver instead of the white father, the imam or the pastor of a local church. I still wonder why I said yes. Well, I planned my sermon and went with the unexpected. I spoke of fables. I spoke of the ant, a fire ant in this case to keep it local, and the grasshopper, my father’s favorite tale, and the tortoise and the hare. I wove amazing links between the fables and God. Heads turned. Mouths opened in awe. I swear I heard the choir of heavenly angels. The principal was so taken with my sermon she never asked me again. My guess was she thought I couldn’t top my last sermon. Little did she know there was always Henny Penny. I was ready just in case.

The snow flurries are pillowy, sort of drifting instead of falling. The morning is cold, but it is a bit warmer than last night. Right now it is 19˚ but it feels like 7˚according to my Google. The sky is lighter than it was earlier this morning, but the flurries are still here. They are blowing north to south. I’m glad I have no need to leave the house. I’ll just experience today vicariously by looking out the den window.

Every time I walk around the house I either straighten something, sweatshirt dust a table or move stuff. I’m beginning to think I need to close my eyes and feel my way to the kitchen.

I think I’m content. My fridge is full. Books are piled on the table. The trash is gone. I don’t have enough laundry yet to pile. The house is cozy and warm. Henry and Jack are upstairs sleeping. Gwen always stays upstairs, but I think she might be sleeping too. I’m watching reruns of Grimm. The sun poked out for maybe a minute, maybe two. That’s hopeful.

When I was a kid, the floor of my closet was a jumbled pile. On the top were the shoes I last wore. I have no idea what was on the bottom. I never needed to go that far down. The pile always grew from the top.

I have bowls exactly like the ones my mother always used when I was a kid, four nested Fire King bowls with tulips on them. My mother and I were at an antique market together when we saw a lady put the familiar tulip bowls on her shop shelf. I picked them up right away, and I bought them. I have a round wooden nut bowl which has a nutcracker, an old silver metal cracker, in a hole in the top of the bowl. My mother used to fill one like it with nuts for us at Thanksgiving as a snack while we watched the parade. I use my bowl on the table at Thanksgiving as a decoration, as a memory.

I really liked finding those bowls, those pieces of my childhood, even if it was in an antique store.

The morning is freezing cold. It is 14˚ and with the wind feels like -3˚. The snow showers started around nine and will continue all day. Outside looks so very ugly and uninviting. Today is a cocoa day.

Skip, my factotum, is coming for the trash. A couple of the litter bags are so heavy I was dreading lifting them and carrying them to the car. Empty boxes have taken over my dining room. Two more boxes, with on-sale wrapping paper inside, just arrived from FedEx. I emptied them and added them to the pile, to Skip’s pile. (Skip has come and is now gone. He made so many trips to the car I stopped counting. I have no trash bags, no newspapers and magazines and no boxes. Halleluia!)

When I was a kid, snow days were the best because they came unexpectedly. I can remember waking up and seeing the world had disappeared under the thick snow. I can also remember listening for the fire horn. It was blown to announce no school days. We’d cheer then we’d hurry to get dressed to go outside to play in the snow. That was an all day affair.

When I go out to eat, I often order cheeseburgers with Swiss or Monterey Jack cheese. I like thin onion rings. I put mustard and piccalilli on my hot dogs and onions if they’re available. I like apples cold but I’m okay with room temperature oranges. Bananas never go into the fridge. I don’t like spaghetti but I love pasta. My favorite ice cream varies. It was mint chocolate chip for a while. Right now I have coffee chip in the freezer. Only the chips are the constant. Raisin Bran Crisp is my favorite cereal of late though I would never turn down plain old Corn Flakes with sliced bananas. I like all kinds of potatoes, but mashed potatoes are my favorites with gravy or butter or both. I don’t quibble.

As for desserts, I am so not picky except I don’t do cake and ice cream together. I like chocolate pudding, but I seldom have it. I like cookies, but I don’t think of them as desserts. Cookies are a snack. My favorite dessert is usually whatever I have on hand. Today that would be the ice cream or the package of chocolate chip cookies which came with my groceries yesterday. I swear it’s calling my name.

The day looks dismal from the window. The sky is grey, and the rain has started again. It rained most of yesterday. The 2 inches of snow from the other night disappeared under the onslaught of the constant rain. The temperature is 37˚, one degree from the expected high, but, without a wind, the air feels warm. The low will be 19˚ around three or so in the morning according to Hey Google.

My bedroom is cluttered. I have been ordering stuff on sale to put away for next Christmas, and the stuff is piled waiting to be put into bins I have yet to buy. Bins are on my list. I also need hooks and Molly bolts so a trip to the hardware store is in order. I always feel inept when I go to the hardware store. It is filled with nuts and bolts and all sorts of things foreign to my experiences.

Today I’m staying home. The rain is uninviting. I already have empty boxes and newspapers in the car for this week’s dump run, but I’ll wait until tomorrow and add the hardware store to my list.

Ennui is my mood of the day, maybe even my mood of the month. There we go: something new, a mood of the month. Very little holds my attention. I have watched parts of several movies. I’ve never watched the endings. I don’t get that far. Right now the movie is Night of the Blood Beast, a black and white scifi from 1958. A dead air force officer returns from space and comes back to life. Unbeknownst to anyone, even the officer, he brought an alien, a monster, back with him in the ship. Now for my favorite part: the officer’s body is the breeding ground for the mama monster’s babies.

When I was in college, my friends and I met on and off all day in the canteen when we didn’t have class. We always sat at the table next to the wall, for no reason except custom. In the mornings, we’d each get a copy of the newspaper and race to finish the crossword puzzle. We’d drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes we’d cut class. Once in a while an outlier would join us. We were always kind.