One o’clock has come and gone. Henry is sleeping on the couch but Jack, the cat, is restless. He is on the table, and his tail keeps sweeping across the computer screen. It’s driving me crazy. Meanwhile, Gwen is on one of the stairs, maybe the third from the top, meowing. She does that every night. She bemoans her fate.

My heat just went on. It is set at the night time temperature of 65˚ so the house is really cold. I need a nose muff.

When I was a kid, my school shoes had laces. I could tie the laces, but it took me a while to learn to make the bows tight. Until then, I was just glad I could make the bow. Tension was never part of the execution.

End of Part I

Today is an ugly day. I could give you so many reasons for ugly, but I’ll just grouse about the weather for now. It is on and off raining. It is dark and still and quiet. It is a good day to be home.

Massachusetts is a political outcast. It always gets ignored by both presidential candidates. Trump knows it is a waste of time to try to court Massachusetts voters. Babies are born blue in this state. Biden knows he needs to be elsewhere. Massachusetts is safe for him. After all, we were the only state to vote for McGovern, a matter of pride for me.

I love my slippers. For years I have been wearing wool clogs. My current clogs are grey. Most of the time I forget to change into shoes when I go out so my slippers serve double duty. This morning my toe broke through the wool, my big toe. I almost cried.

My birds are back. The feeders need to be filled again. I like to watch the feeders from the window over the sink. The chickadees and titmice fly in and out constantly, an ever lasting loop of birds.

My laundry is becoming a B movie creature. Every day the pile gets bigger. Henry is starting to walk around it, wary the whole time. I’m thinking I’ll do it tomorrow, a Scarlet O’Hara tomorrow.

I gave Henry his new Halloween toy early. I let him see it then smell it then I slid it across the floor to him. Anything new is gradual with Henry. I just heard the toy squeal. Frankenstein dog toy has met its match.

Today is a good day to stay home. It’s cloudy and chilly. I think today is the day to recognize the start of sweatshirt weather.

Yesterday was the third day this week I’ve gotten dressed. That is a new pandemic age record for me. I didn’t make it to Agway, too many cars in the parking lot, so I went to the Dollar Store. That was a new experience. I kept looking for price tags. I’ve been inside far too long.

I can’t explain it, but I like the movie There’s No Business Like Show Business. After that admission, I almost think I should use a fake voice along with my mask. The big stars are Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor, Johnny Ray, Mitzi Gaynor and Marilyn Monroe so you can see the appeal, or maybe not. Anyway, plot details include boarding school, a musical family, vaudeville, nuns, Work War II, a priest, singers and a sailor. The ending is worthy of a Hallmark movie. Just before I left for Ghana it was on TV again. I watched again.

Election night is coming. I have the menu chosen for my dinner that night. I’m going to have donkey pasta (not from a donkey but in the shape of a donkey) and donkey garlic bread. I’m going to keep champagne on ice just in case, and I’ll wear all blue. Prayers might also be in order.

Cue the music. Cue Rod. “It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition…” Okay, here’s where I come in. My evening ritual before I go to bed is not to shut down my computer but to shut the cover which essentially shuts the computer down. This morning when I got downstairs I heard voices coming from the den, coming, I thought, from the TV, but it was from my computer. I opened the cover but could not find an open program with voices. I shut the programs down and the voices disappeared only to be replaced by music, muted and strange. I thought it came from outside so I went around listening. Nope. I followed again. The sound came from my modem. It was playing music. Mind you, not the computer, just the modem. I’m beginning to feel haunted.

The day is a pretty one and is warm enough in the high 60’s. I’m getting outside dressed again which is becoming an ugly habit for me. I have to pick up cream for my coffee at Ring’s where I know I won’t get just coffee, and I need to stop at Agway for a few house plants to fill empty pots in the dining room. The first stop is essential. The second is necessary, a mood lifter maybe. Plants and flowers do that for me.

I am a sucker for punishment. I voted in August, but I still watch MSNBC or CNN so I don’t miss any breaking news. There hasn’t been any, but I’m still holding strong.

My house has clumps of fur. An analysis shows white fur held together by black fluff. These clumps would be contributions from Henry, white with a few big blotches of brown, and Jack, black except for his paws which are white and have hair sticking out like lightning bolts. I never walk upright in my house. I walk bent over all the better to collect the dust clumps.

My animals avoid me. I think they’ve had enough of me. Poor Henry bears more responsibility to entertain me than the cats, especially Gwen who is never downstairs anyway. I do miss people, but I’m finding ways to keep my self entertained. The same thing happened when I lived alone my first year in Ghana. I was so miserably homesick when I got to my school I decided to leave at the end of the first semester, but I stayed and did a 180˚. I found people who visited me to be inconveniences and was hard-pressed to be cordial. It is my house so go away. It took a while for me to find my best place. I’m working on that again.

My friend Maria called yesterday. She keeps in touch and calls periodically when she is driving her trek to work as it is a long ride, and I am entertaining. She and I have been friends since both of us were single digits, 8 or 9. I remember the summer she and I watched Watergate all day, every day. I think we did feed her kids and change their diapers, but I’m not sure.

Henry and I shared coffee and a banana this morning.

Today is another perfect autumn day. The air is still and bright with sun. I woke up late, and that has become a habit. It used to bother me that I slept through part of the morning but not any more. What difference does it make what time I wake up? If I need to be somewhere, I set my Alexa. Other than that I’m okay to sleep late, nose under the mirror late.

Poor Henry has to listen me whine. I’m thinking I’ve become annoying. He has escaped upstairs yet again. Actually, all of them are upstairs sleeping.

Yesterday I got dressed for the second day in a row. I actually managed to complete one errand and two appointments. I went back to the eye doctor for my yearly appointment. My eyes did sterling, no change, no new lenses. I’m still waiting for the red to go away, but it doesn’t affect my eye. It just looks ugly, but nobody sees it so I’m okay.

When I was a little kid, maybe three or four, I broke my wrist. I was proud of that cast earned through an act of courage and showed it off every chance I got. I had jumped off the fence backwards, but I didn’t stick the landing. I had used my hand to help. I got a buckle fracture.

I remember when I read Gone with the Wind. It was the summer before I had to teach it in American Literature. Who chose that book I’ll never know. Calling it literature is a stretch. Knowing I was stuck with it, I took the book with me on the plane ride to London. I was making my usual summer European trip, complete with backpack and sleeping bag. Anyway, I read for the whole flight, and after we had landed and gotten a room, I kept reading. I finished the book. It was a great diversion for the flight, but I still didn’t want to teach Gone with the Wind, a soap opera in book form. I did love the movie.

Noon has come and gone. I have been taking my time this morning. I haven’t even read the Cape paper yet, but I know everything in the Globe. When I went to get the papers, I bent over and realized I was getting too much air. Yup, the seam was already split in the back of my pants. It’s a good thing the only neighbors always have their blinds down. Speaking of blinds, I think the house across the street is haunted by a malevolent spirit. Herb and Joanne lived there from the start. They always kept the blinds down. When Herb and Joanne left for care facilities, the new neighbors who bought the house moved in quickly. They keep the blinds down. They let the front lawn die even though they have a sit down mower better for the back forty than a dead front lawn. They don’t speak. They don’t even wave. I’m going to be on alert, but I will posit a second theory here. Perhaps they are avoiding me.

Today is a beautiful fall day, warm and sunny. I have to go out so I’ll add the dump to my list of errands. I’ve already brought some of the trash to the car.

When I was a kid, we always watched Huntley and Brinkley on election night. Sometimes guessing the winner was over quickly; other times it was laborious. I can still see the set in my mind’s eye. Each state had its own posted card which listed votes and their breakdowns by party. Human hands kept updating the results, and Huntley and Brinkley kept track for us until it was comfortable enough to call for one candidate or the other. That took time.

We used to make cootie catchers with paper. In the beginning. there might have been cooties which necessitated the catchers, but I never saw one. I always thought cooties were like fleas, too tiny to see, and we all knew having cooties was a social disaster. The cootie catcher is folded and moves horizontally and vertically just by moving your fingers. The cootie catcher-cootie maker wrote whatever she wanted on all the flaps. The final flaps told the story. Cooties or no cooties?

The rain started just as I was getting my newspaper. It lasted maybe five minutes, but the weather report says rainy day with a high of 63˚. The sun has been in and out the last couple of minutes. I’m rooting for a sunny day. My psyche needs it.

My covid circle is a dog and two cats though I don’t really think I can count Gwen. She’s never downstairs or at least never when I’m awake. Right now both cats and the dog are upstairs sleeping. My circle has collapsed.

I lose track of the days of the week. Today feels like a Saturday but then so did yesterday.

The only chore left is laundry. The old apple basket I use for laundry is by the cellar door so I have to walk around it on my way to the kitchen. I figure in time I’ll tired of walking around it and do the laundry or I’ll run out of clothes, whichever comes first.

Today I am a mess. My right eye was itchy on Sunday. I rubbed it so much it turned red, and it stayed red into yesterday. Today my eye socket is red, and my eye is almost swollen shut. It hurts when I touch it which is prompting the old chestnut, “Well, don’t touch it!” If it gets worse during the day, I’ll think about getting it checked.

When I was a kid, our family doctor’s house was right beside the entrance to the schoolyard. His son also went to St. Pat’s. He was a year younger, my brother’s age. I remember him because of his ears. They stuck out and elicited comments like can you fly with those ears or, my personal favorite, your car doors are open. One September he came back to school with a bandage around his ears from his chin to his head. He looked like Marley. He had had surgery to pull back his ears. He couldn’t fly after that. That’s one of my odd memories.

Yesterday I finished what I had set out to do, nothing. I consolidated trash into a single bag for a future dump run and considered myself well accomplished. The house is clean so today my attentions can be elsewhere. I will water plants and browse through cookbooks for spectacular fall recipes.

When I was in grammar school, my desk top lifted so I able to keep all my stuff neat. Pencils, a ruler, crayons, and workbooks, each had a certain spot inside my desk. The biggest book inside my desk was a reader filled with stories, questions about each story and possible essays. Arithmetic was mostly work sheets and board work. We had geography and history books. We had art and music, no books. For music we sang while a classmate played the keyboard. The nun gave us the starting note from her pitch pipe, and we sang while she directed us. I have no idea what she was doing. I don’t think she did either though she was good with the pitch pipe. Art was mostly whatever though I do remember making a puppet out of paper mâché, giving it horns and painting it red like the devil. It was one of the best things I ever made.

I have a small, old school desk in the kitchen. On the top is where the microwave sits, and the underneath, usually for books and such, has the holiday kitchen towels. The chair holds the day to day towels. The top of the microwave holds my African cookbook collection. I bought the desk and chair at a church fair many years ago. It was a lucky find.

Today is sunny and cloudy and sunny again. The air has a chill even though it is 61˚, the high for the day. Tonight will get down to the 40’s. Both my doors are open to the sun. Henry loves watching out the front. I have no idea what holds his attention. My street is a quiet one, but I do know when the mailman comes.

Read yesterday’s description of the weather from Coffee, and you’ll find it works for today too. My house was cold when I woke up. The sun is shining yada yada yada.

I have no ambition, but my car is full of trash so I haven’t any choice but to go to the dump today as it is closed the next two days. But then again…

I have ordered breakfast to be delivered, eggs Benedict with home fries and what looked like a tomato flower. I’m tracking the driver, and he is on the way here having already picked up my breakfast. I have never before ordered a breakfast delivered, but I did mention my lack of ambition today.

In honor of Halloween, I am wearing my bony hand earrings and watching old horror movies. I asked my remote to find Halloween movies, and it did, movies even I won’t watch. The first was Attack of the Killer Donuts which now joins tomatoes on the killer food group list. Underneath this movie was a thumbnail of movies other people also watched besides the killer donuts. I was curious. I am no longer curious. The list included a movie called The Thingy: Confessions of a Teenage Placenta. It was described as, “The heartbreaking story of a living placenta that is raised as a human, a christian, a soldier.” It is a Belgian movie listed on IMDB as tragedy, comedy and horror. It sounds gross and strange so I’ll pass; instead, I am watching The Mummy, the original with Boris Karloff. I watch it every Halloween season along with Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman, my favorite horror movies from the 1930’s. They used to scare me when I was a kid, and I loved them for that. It has been a long time since they’ve scared me, but it doesn’t matter. I still love them anyway. The mummy is walking.

Breakfast is moving fast on the mid-cape.

Today was a mirror under the nose day. It was close to noon before I dragged myself out of bed. I went to bed close to two so I slept well and long. I did wake up once because I heard the rain. It was pouring.

Today is a perfect fall in New England day. The sun is shining from a deep blue sky. The wind is blowing. It is chilly, only in the 50’s, and it won’t get much warmer this afternoon, but it feels just right.

Henry has been in and out all morning. He goes out. I let him in. After he is done with outside, he patiently waits peering through the dog door hoping to see me. Sometimes I just wait hoping he’ll come in by himself. I know he can; however, today is not one of those days. I have to go let him in the house.

Early voting started here today. I voted early the last time. This time it was by mail. I checked on line, and my ballot is safe, and it counts!! I never miss voting. I remember registering to vote the day after my twenty-first birthday. 1968 was my first presidential election vote. I voted for Hubert Humphrey. Much later, during Watergate, my sister, my cousin and I were waiting in line to try to get seats inside at the hearing. Senator Humphrey walked by me while I was in line, and I got his autograph. The only paper I had was a copy of The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. The senator signed it. I have the book upstairs.

My father was a democrat then he became a republican. He voted for Nixon both times. We all, my brother, sisters and I, did not vote for Nixon. My father made fun of us when McGovern was so soundly defeated. We made fun of him when Nixon got caught and resigned. My father said Nixon was innocent. We all eavesdrop.

I have two pins I wore during the 1972 campaign. Both say Returned Peace Corps/Vista for McGovern-Shriver. They are the last pins I collected. My frame is filled.

When I woke up, the sun was shining. The day looked pretty, and it felt warm when I opened the door for Henry. Now, it’s cloudy, and the house is dark, a cozy dark, a buttoned up, comfortable dark.

I remember walking home from school one rainy afternoon when I was a kid and getting so soaking wet even my shoes bubbled. When I got in the door, I shed the wet wear, went upstairs, got cozy and jumped into bed, book in hand. I nestled under the covers, turned on the bed lamp and began to read. As I was lying there, I felt warm and protected. This morning, the memory of that so long ago moment jumped out of my memory drawer and gave me cause to smile. 

The storm doors went on yesterday. I know there will be warm days still, but the nights get chilly, and I leave the back inside door open for Henry. He just goes out still though he does come in when it suits him, like when he wanted to eat the FedEx guy. I put Henry out to spare the guy Henry’s mad barking and bared teeth, but Henry ran in the door. It suited him.

I found the weather description a bit weird in the Cape Times. It said for Today: A shower in the morning then a little rain. For Tonight: Periods of rain becoming heavy. What I want to know is when does Today become Tonight.

Fall, my favorite of all the seasons, is here. The days are warm. The nights are chilly. The house is cold in the morning. Strong breezes blow the leaves up the sides of the street, and they turn and twist and look a bit like tumblers on a mat. The sun comes and goes. Its sharp light flickers through branches, some already naked of leaves.

I want to cheer and throw confetti to welcome fall officially, but, instead, weather permitting, I’ll sit on the deck, light the fire in my chiminea and watch the smoke curl into the sky. I’ll warm myself by the fire, and the smell of burning wood will stay with me, on my clothes and in my memories.