Today has a few more clouds than yesterday, but it is still sunny and warm. I never did get out yesterday. I went out on the deck and noticed the bins there weren’t covered. Water was halfway up the insides and everything was wet. I emptied the bin and the metal barrel and left everything to dry. Last night it rained.

Every day I sleep late. Every day when I see the time, I jump out of bed as if it matters. It doesn’t. I have no plans for today except to get to that dump. My car and trunk are filled.

When I got downstairs, I turned on the TV to check what is happening in the world. Five minutes later I turned off the TV.

When I was a kid, today would have been the perfect Saturday to make a lunch, haul my bike out of the cellar and take off for the day. I seldom had a destination. It was the ride I loved. In one direction, I could bike to Weiss Dairy Farm. The cows were usually out in the field beyond the barn. They were black and white, Holstein dairy cows. If I biked in a different direction, I could easily get to the lake in the next town. I’d sometimes ride the whole circumference while other times I’d go halfway. A third direction brought me to the golf course where I’d hunt for errant balls. I’d ride a bit more, sort of a backtrack, then stop for lunch near the town hall where there were benches. I never saw anyone sitting on the benches. After lunch I’d pump as hard as I could up the giant hill at the far end of town then glide to the bottom where the pool was. I didn’t stop. I’d bike a bit more on the road alongside the reservoir then finally I’d take my route home.

I’d get home in the late afternoon and immediately put my bike in the cellar. Not to do so would invite my father’s ire. I’d watch TV then have dinner then take my Saturday bath. Bedtime was always later on Saturday. I was usually tired.

I think a parade is in order. Today is warm and lovely. Not a branch is stirring, and the sun owns the sky. I went to get my newspapers without wearing my sweatshirt. This day should be commemorated.

A badge, I want girl scout badges for my efforts. I used to have a sashful of badges, but my sash disappeared over the years. I’m about to start another. I think I have earned the home health badge. I’m sure a worldwide pandemic was never considered when this badge was added so this badge is a slam dunk (a little sport’s metaphor, a small reminder sports exist). I can also add the housekeeper badge, not one to which I have ever aspired. I did it. I cleaned downstairs yesterday. I couldn’t take the mountains of dust anymore. It happened suddenly. I got up to go to the bathroom, but I detoured. I dusted and vacuumed. The animals scattered. Poor Henry couldn’t find a safe spot from the vacuum and my frenzy. I still have to wash the kitchen and bathroom floors.

I find myself talking and even shouting at people on TV. I just told a lady she was wearing the ugliest orange hat. She didn’t respond. So far I have had no responses. My sanity is safe.

I have brought down the laundry from upstairs. That’s one step closer to washing it. I wonder if there is a laundry badge.

I feel accomplished. I brought all of the trash except the bag I’m using to the trunk. I am dusting myself off today. I am going to the dump then I’m taking a ride. I think ice cream is in order. I deserve a treat.

Today is lovely, sunny and warm. It is 60˚ and will even get a bit warmer. I have no set plans, no lists. The car is still filled with boxes, and I have added bags bound for the dump. The only problem is I really don’t have any ambition. I close my eyes when I go to the kitchen. There is no dust. I can’t see it.

I’m going to stop for a few provisions. My light cream is gone, and the cats need more variety in their canned food. I need something sweet.

I am watching a movie which supposedly takes place in Boston. Not one character has a Boston accent, realistic or otherwise. The names of towns are mispronounced. I can only watch a short while before I yowl.

Yesterday Henry drove me crazy. He barked most of the afternoon and during the evening. I was crazed. I went to check. When I opened the front door, nothing was there, no delivery trucks, no walkers, no stray dogs and not a single turkey. I have no idea why he was so insistent.

When I was a kid, I played CYO basketball. We practiced Saturday mornings. I remember my coach had been a marine. That’s all I remember about her. She made us wear high tops, black ones. She taught us basketball strategy, but she also taught us to cha cha. She brought a portable record player and set it up in the gym. She showed us the steps, divided us into couples and had us dance. I really think that is the last time I ever did the cha cha; however, should I be called upon, I will gladly demonstrate but only if my life depends on it.

Today is another day of clouds. They match my disposition. I think I’ll go out later. Getting dressed will be a novelty.

Sometimes I lose track of the day of the week. When I wake up, I ask the Alexa in my bedroom the day and time. It is curiosity that makes me ask. It really doesn’t make much difference whatever day it is. My routine barely changes. This week I still have the dump and the laundry, the last one my bugaboo.

When I was a kid, I don’t remember being afraid of much. I found thunder and lightning exhilarating. I wandered the woods. Snakes were fun to watch slither across the grass. Bugs were prey caught with my jar. I remember seeing my first praying mantis. I didn’t know what it was. I thought it the most remarkable bug I had ever seen. It still shares first place with a centipede.

If I had to live on one food, I’d be hard pressed to choose that food, but there are a few possibilities. Rice is on the possibility list. The only drawback is I had to live on rice for a while when there was a late rainy season. I’m not so sure I want to do that again, but jollof rice may convince me. Chicken is on the list. I could eat off a chicken for quite a few meals ending in a pot of soup. Eggs are on the list. They can be cooked in so many ways. I love over-easy, but I’d miss my toast.

If I were stuck in the woods, I couldn’t forage. I’d have no idea what to look for beyond berries. I’d need a book with illustrations.

In Ghana, I sometimes had to flick the bugs off my food. I drank water with floaties. I sifted flour hoping to get most of the bugs out. I didn’t, but they got cooked so no harm. I still do that, flick the bugs off.

My current menu is heavy on foods like crackers and cheese. I have eaten all my frozen meals, mostly chicken pies (chicken again). I still have plenty of food, but I like stuff I don’t have to cook, hence the savory pies.

I haven’t eaten yet though it is after two. I’m thinking about ordering a pizza.

The door bell woke me up this morning. Henry jumped off the bed and flew down the stairs. I took a bit more time. I don’t fly. When I opened the inside door, I saw my two bags of groceries on the top step blocking the storm door. I had requested delivery between one and two, and here it was at eleven thirty. It took me a while to move the bags from blocking the door, but once I got them inside, I carried them to the kitchen in one trip. $88.00 worth of groceries in two paper bags don’t weigh a whole lot.

I was in Ghana from June 1969 until July 1971. During that time, I missed what was going on at home even though Peace Corps sent us The NY Times Week in Review. It all seemed so far away, even surreal. I was more preoccupied with learning a new language and figuring out how to traverse Ghana from top to bottom. I was eating strange foods and shopping in markets with goats, sheep and more chickens than I’d ever seen in one place running around. I was tolerating bugs and the rainy season and humidity. I was homesick and discouraged. That was my world and the world of all the other trainees (PCT’s in Peace Corps jargon) that summer.

We got together after the day’s training. We’d walk to the local spot (bars in Ghana) at the end of the dirt road right near our training site. We sat outside in the cool evenings drinking beer, laughing, singing and complaining. Beer was 50 pesewas. I hate beer but the 50 pesewas (about 50 cents) made it appealing. We played drinking games.

My group of trainees numbered about 125. We were all strangers that Sunday in June when we met in Philadelphia, but here in a spot in Koforidua, 8 or 9 weeks later, we were friends. We were nearing the end of training. We would be on our own in a couple of weeks. We were nervous and we were scared. We ordered another round, my friends and I, and we played one more drinking game then sang our way home as we followed a trail through the tropical rain forest. I slept well that night.

Special days have special posts.

Today is Mother’s Day. It is the day I honor my mother and my memories of her. Every year I post basically this same entry with only a few little changes. 

I am amazed at how long ago I lost my mother. Sometimes it seems like a day while other times it feels like forever. I keep her close always, in my heart. 

My mother was amazing. She was generous, fun to be with and was the perfect martyr when she needed to be, a skill I think most mothers have. It was her tone of voice so filled with pain that caused our guilt to well to the surface. “I’ll do it myself,” she’d say. We’d scurry to do whatever she wanted. She was tricky, that woman.

My sisters and I laugh often about the curses she inflicted on us: the love of everything Christmas and never thinking you have enough presents for everyone, giving Easter baskets overflowing with candy and fun toys and surprising people with a gift just because.

My mother had a generosity of spirit. She was funny and smart and the belle of every ball. She always had music going in the kitchen as she worked so she could sing along. She played Frank and Tony and Johnny and from her I learned the old songs. My mother drew all the relatives to her, and her house was filled on holidays and weekends. My cousins visited often. She was their favorite aunty. My mother loved to play Big Boggle, and we’d sit for hours at the kitchen table and play so many games we’d lose track of the time. Christmas was always amazing, and she passed this love to all of us. We traveled together, she and I, and my mother was game for anything. I remember Italy and my mother and me after dinner at the hotel bar where she’d enjoy her cognac. She never had it any other time, but we’re on vacation she said and anything goes. I talked to her just about every day, as did my sisters. I loved it when she came to visit. We’d shop, have dinner out then play games at night. I always waited on her when she was here. I figured it was the least I could do.

My mother loved extreme weather shows, TV judges and crime. She never missed Judge Judy. She also liked quiz shows and she and I used to play Jeopardy together on the phone at night. She always had a crossword puzzle book with a pen inside on the table beside her chair, and I used to try to fill in some of the blanks. On the dining room table was often a jig saw puzzle, and we all stopped to add pieces on the way to the kitchen. My mother loved a good time.

She did get feisty, and I remember flying slippers aimed at my head when I was a kid and one time a dictionary, a big dictionary, was thrown which luckily missed me though the binding broke when it hit the wall. I pointed that out to her and that made her madder. She expertly used mother’s guilt on us, her poor victims. We sometimes drove her crazy, and she let us know, none too quietly. We never argued over politics. She kept her opinions close. We sometimes argued over other things, but the arguments never lasted long.

Even after all this time, I still think to reach for the phone to call my mother when I see something interesting or have a question I know only she can answer, but then in a split second I remember. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was of her, and how much she is missed. No one ever told me how hard it would be. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!!

It rained yesterday, and it will rain again today. It is chilly at 44˚. The sun was out for a bit then it disappeared then it reappeared. The clouds are getting darker. The wind is whipping the tops of the pine branches. I expect a few to break. It is a good day to stay home.

When I was in high school, the library was a hangout. It was a legitimate reason to go out on a school night, one of the very few. I think a broken leg was also on the list.

We didn’t drive, my friends and I. We mostly got rides from parents. Our high school was two towns away and buses only ran during the daytime. On weekends, we’d often stay local and meet for a movie, a night of bowling, bad bowling, or just to get together. Sometimes there was a dance at school. I will always remember the day of the week of the Kennedy assassination. It was a Friday, and we were supposed to have a dance.

When I was a kid, summer was my favorite season, not just for no school but because the days were long, hot and sunny, made to do anything I wanted. In the summer, we could go anywhere our feet or our bicycles could take us just as long as we were home when the streetlights came on. We didn’t have to go inside then, but we had to stay within my mother’s shouting range. Summer days were long.

Meal times and bedtimes disappeared. I’d stay up late watching TV or reading or I’d sit outside on the back steps by myself and look at the millions of stars covering the sky. I learned to be content.

Today looks the same as yesterday. Rain is predicted for later so the sun didn’t bother to show up at all. Day after day of clouds is making me grumpy. Good thing I live alone.

Yesterday I watered the plants and emptied all the boxes sitting by the door. I put the empty boxes in the car for the next dump run, probably tomorrow. On the counter in the kitchen I have piled everything I need for cleaning except for the mop. That’s back in storage. It’s going to rain so they’ll be more paw prints on the kitchen floor. They’ll mingle with the old paw prints.

When I was a kid, I was never good at art. My people were all stick people. Some of them had hair, flip up dos, so it was easy to distinguish females from males. The ladies all wore dresses in a v-shape. Sometimes I’d color the dresses while other times I’d try to draw a pattern. Once in a while, when I was at my most creative, I’d draw a purse with a strap and hang it from the lady’s arm. The male didn’t wear clothes. You knew they weren’t females.

Ick! Ick! Ick! Last night the outside of my ear was itchy. I scratched it and realized something was there. I grabbed it between my fingertips. It was a tick looking for a home. That grossed me right out. All night long I was checking both Henry and me. I found no other ticks. I’d hate to have one of the cats with a tick. I’d never find it in all that fur.

My Red Sox flag hanging off a pole on a tree in the front yard is tattered and torn. I think it is a metaphor for baseball. I’m going to replace it with the new Peace Corps flag I bought. Hanging it is a matter of faith. There are no volunteers currently serving as all were evacuated because of Covid, but we know Peace Corps will be back. All of us who served know.

I talk out loud and not always to the animals. If I talk to one of them, I address that pet by name. The other times I speak out loud are mostly to punctuate something I’m watching on TV. I think myself quite witty at times, sort of a quarantined Dorothy Parker. Other times I am in my House Beautiful mod, and I comment about the rooms or the walls behind newscasters, nighttime hosts and guests. Most have bookcases, and you can read the titles if you stop. My favorite is Seth Meyers. The Thorn Birds are always on the table beside him in what he calls his attic. Sometimes the book is one of many, sometimes one of a few. I first check the table at the beginning of each show. I decided my wall would be in the living room. I’d move the table and make it a desk then add the blue chair with the moons.

Wow, when I started today I was sure I had nothing to say. I was going to beg off and take another holiday. I’m glad I didn’t

When I opened the door this morning, there were three boxes on the walkway. I hauled them inside and left them in the dining room. I also got a box Monday, but I haven’t emptied it yet. My two new couch pillows, half of my living room redo, are in that box. The third box has a Christmas present so it’s a secret.

Jack has been in the eaves. I know because of the insulation he sometimes has stuck to his fur. My first thought was to block him. Poor Jack wasn’t happy when I did. He scratched the wood door to the eaves in my room. He didn’t get in, just made scratches. I told my sister who reminded me of when I captured 17 mice in the eaves of my bedroom. I decided to let Jack in just in case. Go mighty hunter!

Last night it rained, but I don’t think it rained long. The morning was cloudy, but the sun just broke through for a few minutes. It is in the 50’s again. I am so tired of clouds and wind and cold.

I have a list of things to do but it’s not a to do list. There are distinct differences. The to do list hints at immediacy. I am usually driven to complete those tasks, but the things to do list is its polar opposite. It is your ordinary old list with no time table involved, a list you can put on the fridge with a magnet and reference every now and then. Finishing nothing each day is okay for this list. There is always tomorrow. I get hives if I don’t finish my other list.

Today is a pick up the house day. I need to bring the empty boxes to the car and dust the den where all of us, minus Gwen, spend our time. My laundry is at step 2: bring the clothes basket down here from my room. The plants still need to be watered. That’s it on my things to do list. Now it goes on the fridge. I think I’ll use a magnet from Colorado.

The day is sunny and windy. It’s around 55˚. I haven’t been out except to get the papers. Yesterday I went to the local hardware store only to find out I had put down a different store, the one in South Yarmouth, for my pick-up. I figured I’d wait until Friday to go as another box is due. I don’t have to wait. I got a notice the first order had been cancelled. I still have hopes for the second.

The dust is thick in this room, thick enough for the Dust Me I sometimes see written on the backs of trucks. I’m going to clean. My psyche demands it.

Henry and Jack entertain each other. A little while ago I noticed Henry’s head was bobbing. I wondered what he was doing then I saw the paws whacking him, one paw to each side of Henry’s face. That’s Jack.

Sometime during the night I heard a cat throwing up. I made note of it and went back to sleep. First thing this morning I looked, found it and cleaned the spot. This is not unusual. People who have cats know.

I haven’t really spoken to the new neighbors since the day they moved in. I do know he uses a ride-on mower. It always gives me a chuckle. There he is mowing the back forty.

I made my banana bread a few days ago. I ate it at every meal. I ate the last of the loaf yesterday. Now I just have bread. It’s a comedown.

Earlier, Henry had two bouts of his marauder barking. I didn’t bother to check. That bark can be triggered by many things, by many sounds. I didn’t hear a car so I’m thinking maybe walkers. Good job, Henry.

My newest project will be making spicy brown mustard. I bought all the ingredients yesterday at Ring’s. I already have perfect jars.

Okay, that’s one afternoon down. Who knows how many to go? What should I make next? Maybe brownies? They are chocolate after all. I always have the ingredients for brownies on hand. Doesn’t everyone?

I am not watching news other than a half hour of local and another half hour of national news. Lately I have been watching movies on a variety of channels, including the new one we just got, Peacock. I’ve also been streaming old TV shows, all black and white shows I remember from my childhood. A lot of them are westerns. I wonder if that is why I am not a fan of westerns, a glut from my childhood. The Range Rider, Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Rex and Rinty, The Cisco Kid and Annie Oakley are just a few.

I don’t go out often, usually only for a few groceries. I mostly stay home. Some days are quiet. Some days I love that quiet. Other days, other times, I want some noise. I don’t care if it is a lawnmower or a rake. I just want to know the world still goes on outside the walls of my house. Once in a while I hear a car, and I know when the mail truck is here. Henry howls. That’s about it, the only noises I hear. Today, I’m okay with that.