Keep the Coffee Comimg

Last night I tossed and turned for hours. I stopped looking at the clock. It was depressing to see the time pass. Finally I felt into a restless sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable and kept waking up to rearrange myself. Henry wanted out around eight so I went downstairs and let him out then crawled back into bed hoping to fall asleep. I did and didn’t wake up until close to 12:30. I had my coffee and read the Globe. That was my morning. It is now my afternoon.

When I was a kid, I hated being forced to go to bed. Some mornings I hated being woken up for school. I remember my mother used to shout up the stairs to get us awake. We’d try to ignore her, but that never worked. We’d slowly make our way downstairs to the kitchen. Breakfast was usually on the table. It was sometimes cereal, hot or cold, sometimes a soft boiled egg with cut toast for dunking and other times it was just toast and cocoa.

When I was in college, I hated early morning classes. Sometimes I’d sleep through them and miss one. Other times I’d get to class, but I’d nod off and only catch myself when my head would droop. Back then I was a night person.

In Ghana I turned into an early morning person. My bedtimes were never late. There was no TV to watch so I’d read a bit before turning off the light. I think I was in bed by nine. Roosters often woke me up, but if they didn’t, the students did. They swept the compound every morning and I heard the swishing outside my window. I didn’t mind as the mornings were my favorite time of the day.

On my trips back to Ghana, old habits surfaced quickly. I was in bed early after reading a while. The only difference was I read my iPad instead of a book. A rooster crowed outside my window most mornings and woke me up. That gave me smile.

At a store in Hyannis, I bought a wooden rooster which crows when you press its head down. The sound is exactly a rooster. I let the rooster crow just about every morning. I love that toy.

Last last night (or early this morning, I never know which to choose) it poured. I don’t even know if rain was expected. I just know everything is soaked, and dirty paw prints are a trail across my kitchen floor from the back door. Today is still cloudy and damp, but I opened a couple of windows anyway.

My laundry bag is back to leaning on the cellar door. This time, though, the load is small which may prompt me to take it down to the washer faster than usual.

Henry likes Maddie. She has a cyst which was drained but has returned so Henry laps it clean. Maddie often, at her peril, stands under the dog between his legs. She gets knocked down occasionally. Henry is puppy careless.

I used to check the news every day on MSNBC. I don’t any more. Nothing changes. It only worsens.

Today is one of those nothing in my head days. I haven’t been out this week so I can’t complain about traffic. I suppose I could grumble about the rainy weather, but that just seems so commonplace, so trite. Everybody complains about the weather. I’m just stuck.

My mother made a great apple pie. My father liked it with a slice of cheddar on top. I like it plain. I know some people like it with vanilla ice-cream, but I am in the pie and cake must be separate from the ice cream camp. Either have ice cream or pie but not both together.

I buy specialty coffee like African Gold, and I use light cream. I do love my coffee. In Ghana, I had instant coffee and evaporated milk. I complained then tolerated then stopped noticing how god-awful it was. I even had a couple or more mugs a day. Bolga had cows even back then. Peace Corps warned us not to drink the milk. I think it had to do with bovine tuberculosis.

On my last trip to Ghana, my friend Peg brought coffee in bag form like tea bags. It was so superior to the instant but then we had to use the yellowish evaporated milk. It even looked gross.

I have been back to Ghana three times. I’d like one last trip in 2021, fifty years since I finished Peace Corps service. I love going back to Ghana. My friends Bill and Peg have been back twice. They love Ghana as much as I do. I know a couple of guys who went back this year with their wives, their first time back. I have two Peace Corps friends uninterested in going to Ghana again. One doesn’t want new memories to overwrite the wonderful memories of her two years there. The other said there was no reason to go back. I feel sorry for him.

The back rooms of my house are always dark and cool in the morning. I have to turn on the lamp in the den to read the papers. The cat sticks her head under the lamp shade, her way of  staying warm. When she comes to get patted, the fur on her head is always hot to the touch. Henry doesn’t care whether it’s hot or cold. He goes out, comes back inside and falls asleep on the couch.

When I was a kid, the living room was the coolest room in the house all summer. My mother kept the shades down. It was also the darkest room.

I have a stash of Necco candy: Necco wafers, tropical wafers, a box of Clark Bars and a box of Sky Bars. I know better than to open any package. I used to have two packages of Clark Bars.

My brother-in-law Rod shared his chili recipe with me. It said beans were an optional ingredient. I never have beans in mine. I hate beans. Rod always has beans in his. I told him no beans was more traditional. We still go back and forth on that. I told him I had proof.  “The ICS (The International Chili Society) defines traditional red and green chili as “any kind of meat or combination of meats, cooked with red chili peppers, various spices and other ingredients, with the exception of beans and pasta which are strictly forbidden. No garnish is allowed.” Rod said that was only one opinion.

I have to go out today. Henry needs dog food. He still insists on eating every day.

Today is another lovely day. Rain is expected tomorrow. After that it will get cooler, even as low as the high 50’s at night. The autumnal equinox is in five days, but that really doesn’t change anything. The calendar doesn’t determine the weather.

I am down to my last book.  I’ve put a trip to the library on my dance card.

My TV is stuck on a booting screen. It has been that way since ten this morning. I tried everything first then called Comcast. Since then, I have been having a lovely conversation with a technician from the Philippines. While my TV was booting a few times, we discussed the typhoon which hit Luzon, local languages and travel, but after all that time, nothing worked even though he tried everything. He said a technician would be here on Tuesday. Tuesday? I said angrily as I went ballistic. He apologized profusely but that did little to assuage my anger. Even worse was the confirmation e-mail which said, “KATHLEEN, your service appointment is right around the corner.” I am now in the dark ages, the pre-TV dark ages.

Today is a perfectly lovely day. It is sunny and hot, summer hot, but a breeze from the north is keeping the day bearable. It is a deck day. I’m in the middle of a couple of books, and reading is a perfect activity to complement the day.

When I was a kid, we never had homework on the weekends. The big night was Thursday when I had to learn to spell the twenty words on that week’s list. I was a good speller and even got a spelling ribbon when I was in the second grade. I also got a couple of other ribbons: religion was one but I forget the other. It was the only year of ribbons so I was glad for mine.

I have to go out a bit later and have decided to wear my old purple Converse high tops. I am at an age when eccentricity is accepted. I might even mix my plaids.

I used to wonder how it felt to be old. Now I know it feels no different than when I was twenty. The external changes, but the internal stays the same. I do have memory lapses when I can’t find just the right word. When I’m doing crossword puzzles, I doodle on the side of the page until the answer comes to me. Sometimes the doodles get intricate.

I did all my errands yesterday and even added a few stops. I got an ice coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and treated myself to a Boston cream donut. I deserved the treat.

The sun is actually shining. I can even see some blue sky through the trees. It’s a good day to be out and about doing my errands.

Henry woke me up this morning. I could hear him chewing on something. I thought it might be the wooden foot of my bed. It wasn’t. It was my spread. It’s folded so one chewed hole is four chewed holes when you open the spread. The holes, though, are sort of creative. They remind me of Polish paper cutting art.

When I was a kid, I loved fairy tales and myths and folk stories. I wanted them to be real. I figured a world where the little folk would live must be a good one. Then came a time when I didn’t read any of the stories. I grew up past them. But when I was in Africa, The Hobbit was one of the books in my Peace Corps book locker. I devoured the story and wanted to meet a hobbit. I didn’t figure I’d care to know a dragon but a Hobbit sounded fun. I’ve changed my mind about dragons. I’ve read all of Anne McCaffrey and want to fly in-between. The love of myths and fairy tales never disappeared, just got buried for a time. My imagination is alive and well, but it took some nuturing to bring it back to form. I feel lucky for finding it again!

I love the simple pleasures of every day: freshly brewed morning coffee, funny movies and buttered popcorn with just a touch of salt, warm slippers on a winter’s day, an afternoon nap on the couch, a hot shower after a tiring day and brownies, any kind of brownies, as long as they’re chocolate. It doesn’t take much to make me content.

My life moves slowly, and I’m just fine with that. Mostly I get to pick and choose how to spend my time. I tend to save up my errands so I can finish them all in one day. That leaves six more days, a wealth of time.

The clouds have finally done more than just hang in the sky. The rain started last night. I was reading in bed when I heard the first drops. I stopped reading to listen. When I woke up, the rain was heavier than it had been. I stayed in bed until Henry drove me to get up with his usual exuberant morning greeting. He runs up and down the bed wagging his tail and pushing at me until I pat him. He leaps into the air and spins as he’s leaping. Henry is a morning dog. I am not a morning person.

When I was a kid, we didn’t have a dishwasher or a dryer. My mother washed all the dishes. She hung out the clothes to dry. In winter, when the sheets froze straight out, my mother would lug them into the house and hang them in the cellar to dry. The rest of the year the sheets would dry on the lines. My mother would drape them across the line in the middle. Each side of the sheets almost touched the ground. I remember watching them being blown by the wind. I loved those sheets fresh from outside.

When I have guests, I pile my dishes in the dishwasher. When I am alone, I wash my dishes. Mostly I have just a cup, a glass, one plate and maybe a pan. All my clothes go in the dryer. I do have clotheslines up in the cellar but they date from pre-dryer days. My sheets smell like Bounce.

I have errands which I have decided not to do. Each can wait one more day. I’m tired. I was up early this morning, just before nine. I went upstairs to bed at 10:30 but didn’t turn off the light until after one thirty. I finished one book and got involved in another. I kept doing that one more chapter thing. I did it for an hour.