When I woke up, it was sunny. Right now it is cloudy, and it’s getting dark. Rain is predicted. Yesterday I filled my trunk with bags of newspapers and catalogs to recycle then I filled my backseat with cardboard boxes. The trash is not loaded yet. One bag is in the kitchen and the other is upstairs in the cats’ room. I’m thinking today is a great dump day. It won’t be too busy given the weather and all, and I’ll have a carful of trash. When I’m done, I’ll give myself a well-earned reward for emptying my car. I’ll stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts conveniently placed on my route home. I’ve earned my favorite, a Boston Kreme Pie donut. My second favorite is butternut, but they go fast. You’d think they’d make more.

When I was a kid, donuts on Sunday were a weekly treat. My father was an usher at an early mass, and he usually stopped for donuts on his way home. Most of the donuts he chose were plain. That’s what he ate, a plain donut slathered with butter.

Yesterday I went hunting through DoorDash to see if any new places had been added. I noticed the Island Cafe and Grill so I checked out their menu. I couldn’t order fast enough when I saw curried goat with steamed rice, vegetables and plantain. While I was waiting, the restaurant called and said there was a delay and did I want anything else. I said I’d wait. Of course, I’d wait. After it came, I called Bill and Peg, and they both sort of moaned. They were decidedly jealous. Last time they were here visiting we did Karoo’s, the South African restaurant, and when they visit again, we’ll get goat and plantain, a meal harkening back to Ghana. I love plantain, and there are two right now ripening in the kitchen. Where do I find goat?

Today’s weather is already getting hot and humid. The sun comes and goes. It was dark enough earlier that I had to turn on the table lamp in the den to read the papers. It will get hot today, to the low 80’s, but the occasional breeze, strong enough to blow the leaves and sway the branches, will make the day feel cooler. That makes the deck a perfect destination this afternoon. Besides, I still need to put the deck covers away. They were still wet yesterday so I emptied the water and spread them out in the sun. They dried.

A cat throwing up woke me this morning. Alexa told me it was just after 7. It was Gwen as Jack was sleeping under my bureau. I could see his white paw. Cats throwing up is no big deal. I went back to sleep. When I woke up for good, I cleaned the guest room floor. It was a hair ball moment. I do use anti-hair ball cream but obviously not enough. They are two huge, furry cats.

I don’t know what I want to do today. Sheets and such are in front of the cellar door, and the laundry basket in my bedroom is just about full. I have a hankering to go out even if just for a ride, but I could do the dump. I have adhered the new sticker to my windshield, my back seat is filled with boxes, the trunk already has a trash bag, and one more is in the kitchen ready to go to the trunk (Insert sigh here!).

I have been watching the news channels. Mostly I block out the voices and check the wardrobes of the reporters and the rooms of the peripheral experts who are still home and reporting from there. I noticed two reporters were wearing the same print dress but in different colors. I couldn’t figure out the design of the print. It looked like bees or sunglasses or, my most farfetched guess, Christmas trees. With my attention diverted, I have no idea what either reporter reported (yup, I did this on purpose).

Looks like the sun and the breeze are going to be hanging around enticing me to join them.

Today is damp and cloudy and cooler than I expected. My back is a bit better, but I doubt I’ll go out. I’ll shower, my concession to cleanliness, and I’ll probably read, my nod to literacy. I have a slew (pile? bunch? bevy?) of new books I’ve downloaded. I have plenty of dog and cat food. I have a freezer full of human food. I have a bag of lemon Oreos.

When I was a kid, being quarantined, for even the two weeks, would have been torment for us and for my mother. I think my father would have found his way around it and gone to work. He was a salesman for a tobacco wholesale company. Essential? Maybe? The TV would have been on all day into the night. I think we would have run out of stuff to do in a couple of days. We would have whined and begged my mother to let us out. She would have been frustrated to the point of yelling. My father would have never worn a mask.

I love cheeseburgers. I love hot dogs. My freezer has plenty of both. I don’t use ketchup on either. It would be sacrilege to use it on a hot dog, and I use mayo on my burger. My French fries get ketchup. My onion rings get salt. I am open as to the kind of cheese on my burger. The rolls must be toasted.

I don’t hear a sound from outside. I don’t even hear a car. The branches and leaves are still. My house is quiet. The two cats and the dog are having their morning naps, but were I to rustle paper, Henry and Jack would rush downstairs thinking a human treat to be shared. They’d be disappointed.

I like looking at the background rooms of the houses of people who are remotely on TV. Some rooms are ugly. Some wallpaper is scary. One kitchen was huge and monochromatic, white. I like the cluttered rooms. They have personality. I like Seth Meyers’ Thorn Birds and Jimmy Kimmel’s Aunt Chippy with the foul mouth whom Jimmy loves to punk. I like Jimmy Fallon’s slide and Stephen Colbert’s drinks. Colbert really does need a haircut that is unless he is hoping for a man bun.

Today is an ugly day. It rained more last night. Everything is still wet. Flowers are drooping, and tree limbs are closer to the ground. The furniture covers I spread out to dry have new pockets of rainwater so I’ll have to empty them again if the sun ever returns.

My back is so very painful right now. I have no idea what I might have done two days ago as the pain started yesterday. I didn’t lift anything heavy. Maybe I turned the wrong way. This morning I could barely get out of bed. I moan when I move. Henry watches me from around the corner, his head the only part of him I can see. I think Jack is upstairs. I saw Gwen sort of hiding in the cats’ room. Henry is late for his morning nap.

When I was a kid, I loved getting soaked by a summer rain. I’d stand outside with my arms spread wide and my mouth open hoping to catch some drops. I’d splash the running rivers which ran along the gutters beside the sidewalks. We’d splash each other and laugh at the sheer joy of getting wet on a hot summer’s day.

On the hot days, my little sisters ran through the sprinkler. Ours was often set on the grass along the side wall of the house. It spun in a circle and made noise. I remember my sisters would spread out their towels in the sun as if the yard were a beach. They’d take turns running and jumping over the sprinkler. They’d lie in the sun to dry.

I have a list of stuff to keep me busy. The list isn’t long. Reading tops the list. That was an easy choice. Sporadic cleaning is next because I do that already. I use my sleeve. The rest of the list is fluid. It changes with my mood. On the way through the living room, I sometimes stop and rearrange stuff like the pillows. In the kitchen I move the canisters around on the counter, but they usually end up in the same spot where they started. Strangely enough I am seldom bored. I have learned to take it easy, to slow down and sometimes to do nothing. But when I do nothing, I feel a bit of residual guilt imprinted on me by the nuns. That’s okay I suppose. It keeps me honest.

Today is cloudy and damp. It is already warm, 75˚. Rain is a possibility, but a remote possibility. My house is clean, and I didn’t do any cleaning. Lee and Roseana did. Lee checked, as he always does, to see if I had anything he needed to do. I forgot to have him switch the storm doors for the screen doors. I’ll do it, but I won’t bring the storms down the cellar. They are awkward and heavy. I don’t do stairs while carrying awkward anymore.

The Cape is not a hotbed of exotic restaurants. Falmouth used to have a Caribbean restaurant, and I made the forty five minute trip a few times for goat and plantain. That restaurant is gone now. Wellfleet had a wonderful Mexican restaurant, and, again, I was happy for the ride. That too is gone. Asian restaurants are plentiful. I can eat Thai, Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese. I tried that last one only once so I probably should try it again. Down Cape is a South African restaurant. I have been there several times. The food is different than West African food, but I’ve happily made do with beef bobotie.

Once a week I order delivery, except this week when I ordered twice, but one order was lunch so it doesn’t count. A couple of days ago I had a Panera delivery of a Cuban sandwich. It was both lunch and dinner, half for one and half for the other. I’ve had fish and chips, a fish sandwich, seafood pasta, pizza, subs, cheeseburgers, beef with mashed potatoes and asparagus, a piece of peanut pie and some chocolate chip cookies. I figure I am helping my local restaurants stay afloat, and I’m salving my angst.

I didn’t go out yesterday, just because. I am going out today as I need a change of scenery. I have two stops. One is the nursery, and the other is the grocery store. I need bread and I need chocolate.

Everything is as it should be. The trash is gone. My shower has a new floor, the posts on the garden fence are back in place, all my deck flowers have been planted, the table, the grill and the lounge furniture were cleaned and the deck itself was power washed. I have a few decorative touches to add like small tables, prayer flags and candles, but that won’t take long. I’m ready for a summer of lolling on the deck.

The crossword puzzle in the globe had a great clue, one I knew right away. The clue wanted the country between Togo and Nigeria. It is Benin which was called Dahomey when I lived in Ghana. One of my trips was to go from Ghana, to Togo to Benin.

Today is cloudy and damp. The day is already hot, in the high 70’s. The house, though, is pleasantly cool.

I still need a few more flowers for the clay pots on the deck and some potting soil. I also need to put the furniture covers away. They were left out so they could dry. I need to get a new grill cover. That would be cover number 4.

Every night I light the small lamp in the living room, the over the sink light in the kitchen and the lamp here in the den. I still have white lights in the windows and a string of lights outside coming from the big lit star. I noticed a neighbor up the street also has a lit string of lights.

I remember summer nights when I was a kid. The living room was always dark, lit by a single lamp and the flickering light from our black and white TV. I sometimes sat outside on the back steps. I could hear the muted voices of our close neighbors. Their windows and back doors were open. I could hear the TV from next door. I used to sit there a while taking in the night.

Other than last year, I wound strings of lights around the deck rail. Some lights lasted a while while others went dead in a couple of nights. The spawns of Satan chewed the wires. I have three sets of lights I have been reluctant to put outside. The chewed lights were cheap, only $3 or $4 dollars a string, but the store where I bought the cheap lights was closed. The new lights I bought on line. I’m thinking I’ll take the risk. I love the lights at night.

The other night I saw my first firefly. It blinked by the window so I went out, found him and followed his light across the backyard. I remember the field below my house. During the day grasshoppers jumped in front of me as I walked, but at night, the field was glorious, lit by the fireflies which flew all over. I’d sit at the top of the hill and never tire of watching. I knew fairies were real.

The morning is cloudy. It is already getting hot. The forecast is sun and a high of 79˚. Yesterday I turned on the AC for most of the day. I was comfortable. Henry didn’t pant.

When I was a kid, we didn’t even have a fan. Upstairs was hot. Downstairs was always cooler because my mother kept the shades down and the curtains shut. She seldom used the oven because it heated the whole kitchen, a small kitchen. I don’t remember ever minding the heat even at night. My days were so full I was always tired and fell asleep easily. Last night, in the wonderfully cool house, I fell asleep just as easily.

The day of the deck has begun. Skip, my factotum, has been missing in action. I called and left messages, and I wrote to his friend Bobby on Facebook who is usually with him, but I got no answers. Don is outside starting work from a list. The first job is replacing the rotted wooden floor of the outside shower. He also has to remove three front fence posts which have rotted then replace them with new posts. That’s not so easy as flowers cover the fence. The herbs and flowers for the deck have to be potted, but I still need more flowers so I’ll go in a bit to Agway.

When it got really hot, pre-AC, I’d sleep downstairs on my pull out couch and leave the back door open to catch any air. After I bought a fan, I moved back upstairs and had the fan blowing right on me. Then I got an AC for the bedroom, and my room always got cold. My house redo included central air. It was the perfect choice. I love lolling in my cool house.

The heat will be around all week. The humidity will return tomorrow. Yesterday, the house got hot, 77˚, so the AC ran all afternoon into the evening. When I needed my sweatshirt, I knew the house was cold enough. Upstairs, though, stayed warm. I arranged my hand fan on the bed so my face got the breeze. I fell asleep.

The sun was shining when I woke up, but it has since disappeared behind clouds. The day is a bit darker, but no rain is predicted, just heat. There is an every now and then breeze but in-between the leaves are still. According to the forecast, the sun will be back. It will be another hot day. I’m keeping my sweatshirt handy.

I’m going to buy the rest of my deck flowers today. They’ll be planted tomorrow. After that will be the grand opening of the deck. I’ll play some John Philip Souza and wave flags.

When I was growing up, we all got measles and maybe chicken pox. If one kid got it, we all got it. I remember the itch of the chicken pox. I had the measles when I was about nine or ten. I didn’t get the mumps. Before we could go to school, we had to have a smallpox vaccine shot. Mine was on my upper leg but some of my friends got it on their upper arms. It made an ugly scar.

I was okay for the first couple of months, but I suspect if you now check the dictionary for the definition of bored you’ll see a picture of me yawning. My days really are boring. I clean a little, and I read a lot. I finished another book last night. I watch TV but not so much, mostly movies. I watch for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes then I get bored again. My Netflix roll of movies for Kathleen to continue watching is long.

I’ve already dust mopped the floor. I did it on my way back from the kitchen. I never do just one thing anymore. If I go upstairs, I clean the table on the way and then the stairs on the way down. I hate cleaning.

I am going out today!