The hoopla has ended. The Fourth of July 2018 is now a memory. It was a wonderful evening. We chattered through all three courses. The deck looked festive white lights, spinning pinwheels, a flag banner, red, white and blue flowers on the table, and a star studded tablecloth on what is jokingly called the buffet table, actually an old wooden ironing board I bought for such occasions. I did some clean up in between but much of it was left until this morning when I scoured the kitchen and put away some stuff, all before I got to my newspapers, coffee and toast. I need to clear the deck next, but there is no hurry.

Today there is a breeze, and it is only 82˚, a cold front. Toward the weekend it will get even cooler, and there may be rain.

Yesterday proved I am old. After working on dinner and the deck most of the day, I couldn’t even stand up straight because of my back. I looked like illustrations of the old witch in Hansel and Gretel but without the babushka.

When I was a teacher, I traveled every summer, usually for four or five weeks. Mostly I did Europe, but during the summer of 1976, I was gone 7 weeks and saw much of South America from Venezuela to Brazil. It was a remarkable trip. We just about saw everything on our list. One high point was Machu Picchu which had very few tourists in those days. Americans had yet to find it; in fact, we saw very few Americans on the whole trip except for the US ski team which was staying at the same hotel we were in Buenos Aires. They had been skiing in Chile. We met the PanAm director of South American who was saying good-bye to the PanAm offices as he was retiring. We met him in Paraguay, in Asunción, when he asked to join us for coffee. He said he needed some English for a while. Another high point was the boat trip down the Parana River from Paraguay to Argentina. Only two people on the whole boat could speak English, a French Canadian and a British woman who lived in South America. It was the best cruise. The ship was small and old, but they did have big cruise festivities. One night was the movie The Producers in English with Spanish subtitles. That was fun to watch. The last night was the parade of passengers, all dressed in their finest. We looked like bums.

I admit it. I have been watching Hallmark Christmas movies. They all have happy endings. Every house is decorated beautifully even the houses of Grinches who get their Christmas spirit by the end of the movie. Strangers fall in love and kiss in the glow of Christmas lights. Comets light the sky. Reindeer come home.

This morning, even before my coffee, I went shopping to get the stuff I need for tomorrow’s gala, for our celebration of the Fourth. I found everything I need and a bit more. It took three trips to lug the bags of groceries from the car. The fridge is now full, not even a small space is available. Even the vegetable drawers are filled. Later, I’ll go over my recipes and make a flow chart. I can’t cook a big dinner without a flow chart.

Today Coffee celebrates July 4th as I won’t be posting tomorrow, my day off.

I have traditional posts for most holidays. When I try to write something new, I find I can’t do better. It seems I poured all of my feelings and memories into the very first post. One of my favorite memories is when I marched with St. Patrick’s Shamrocks, a competitive CYO drill team which also marched in local parades including the one in Wakefield on July 4th. One of my parents’ friends had a house on the parade route. Everyone would be on the lawn or the front porch to watch the parade. When St. Pat’s marched by the house, everyone yelled my name. I was both embarrassed and delighted. That’s one of my favorite memories of the day.

I just love birthdays and today is the grandest of them all. Happy Birthday, America.

On July 3rd 1776, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife Abigail. In it, he predicted the celebrations for American Independence Day, including the parties:

“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”

John Adams expected July 2nd to be Independence Day as that was the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, but the signing ceremony for the Declaration of Independence didn’t happen until two days later so because July 4th appears on the Declaration, it became the date we celebrate Independence.

I know some people complain that the meaning of the day is lost in the barbecues and the fireworks, but they have forgotten John Adams’ hope. We are honoring the day exactly as he wished. Flags are waving everywhere. Families get together to celebrate and to break bread, albeit hot dog rolls. Fireworks illuminate the sky. Baseball is played on small town fields and in huge stadiums. Drums beat the cadence in parades. We sing rousing songs celebrating America and our freedom. We also sing heartfelt songs about what America means to us. We are many sorts of people, we Americans. We don’t all look the same, practice the same religion, eat the same foods or dress in the same way, but we all celebrate today. Happy Birthday, America, from all of us Americans.

The air conditioner is off and the windows are open just to let in the morning air. The day is lovely right now. It is still cool enough, but that will give way to the heat, another day in the 80’s. I’m not complaining though, as Boston will have its fourth day in the 90’s.

I have to go to the dump later. My trunk is filled with bags of trash, and I have one more to load. In the winter the dump is the tundra with cold winds blowing across. In the summer it is the desert, a wide expanse of empty land with the hot sun beating down on you.

This is the first week of tourist season. I hope it doesn’t rain. When it does, the roads because impassable with all those tourists riding around looking for something to do. Sitting in a small cottage playing yet another game of Monopoly gets boring, and the open road beckons. The movie theaters get filled, the bowling lanes have waiting lines and the shops have customers looking for Cape Cod t-shirts, decorative shells and bottles of Cape Cod air. I hibernate on rainy days.

We never came went to the cape for vacations. We mostly went north to Maine or New Hampshire, but I do remember our one vacation in Vermont. We stayed at a huge, old white house set back on a small road across the street from a lake which I remember as enormous, but I was only eight and much of the world was enormous. My dad used to take me swimming with me on his back. I’d wrap his arms around my neck. He’d dive deep in the water. I was delighted. I could see small fish swimming all around me. We’d stay submerged until I tapped his back telling him I needed air. I also remember the kitchen had an old fashion phone, the sort which needed to be wound up to get a connection. It didn’t work, and when I lifted it I sometimes got a shock. That’s why I remember it. We spend our days outside. We hunted frogs at the creek which ran beside the house and got muddy all over then we’d go across the road and wash it all off at the lake. We ate outside on the porch which ran around the whole front of the house. Even though I was young, this vacation has stayed vivid in my memory banks. I can still remember those frogs with long legs. I needed both hands to hold one.

The day was already hot at 9:30: it was 85˚. I am not venturing out today. I’m staying  comfortably in my air conditioned house. My feet are cold and I don’t even mind.

Henry is still saving me. The firecrackers last night had him barking, but after the bangs went on for a while, he decided I was safe enough and went to sleep. This morning it was the sound of my newspapers hitting the ground. He barked a few times then went back to sleep secure in the knowledge he had done his job.

I learned to swim when I was little. My Dad taught me. He was the best swimmer I knew. When we stayed in Maine, he’d body surf at the beach. I’d watch from the shore while he waded in a bit and then while he stood in the water waiting for the perfect wave. When it came, he’d dive in at the top and let the wave bring him to shore.

I remember him tossing me in the ocean. I was little, and I thought it was swim or die even though he was right there with me. I swam. From then on I was a swimmer.

Learning to swim, to ride a bike, to roller skate and ice skate were high points for me. I was good at most of them, but I never was a great ice skater. I could manage to keep my ankles upright and to skate backwards, but I never hit the heights I imagined I would. I saw myself gliding across the ice, my leg stretched out behind me in a ballet move, my arms and hands making and breaking a circle in front of me as I glided on the ice. It was beautiful, but it was imaginary. The truth was I’d probably fall if I dared to try to skate on one leg. I knew my limitations.

I could ride my bike with no hands. It took a while to learn. First I tried riding one-handed. When I mastered that, I tried no handed. On the way to mastering no-handed, the handlebars would turn, and I’d have to grab them or I’d fall. I used to keep my hands close to the bars just in case. Finally I was able to shift my body to the right place to keep my balance. I’d hold my arms straight out. Later, I’d just let them hang next to my body. I thought I looked cool and nonchalant.

My niece bought her son a two wheeler without training wheels. His big adventures are about to begin.

An ideal day comes in a variety of ways. Today is one of the odd ones. It is hot already. When I got the papers at nine, I didn’t linger too long outside. I did notice my day lilies are blooming. There are several in a line between the front lawn’s side edge and the trees and high grass between my house and my neighbor’s. They are a pretty boundary. The air conditioner is on and has been since yesterday afternoon when my house was 79˚. I am quite comfortable. I started a book yesterday and am more than halfway through. Few things are better than a good book. My larder is full. I have food and I have treats. I will want for nothing. Alexa is playing Judy Collins. I’m singing along. I’m wearing my comfy clothes. I am content and happy.

Henry is spooked by the shadows across my ceiling. They are the shadows of trees from the backyard. They move when the wind blows. Henry keeps a nervous watch.

Judy is singing Who Knows Where the Time Goes. I don’t have an answer. I doubt any of us do. All of a sudden I was eligible for the senior discount. I have leeway to be a bit obstreperous, to wear mismatched colors and stripes and plaids together. I am allowed to talk out loud even if I’m by myself. I get to substitute for words I can’t remember. I find my conversations peppered with thingamajig, whatsis, doohickey and whatchamacallit. My friends understand and fill in if they can.

Despite all those indicators of advancing age, I feel young. My eyes see the world in much the same way they did when I was a kid. I crave adventure and travel just as I have since I vowed to out travel Marty Barrett when I was eleven. I love surprises. Spending time with my friends is laugh out loud fun. We love to play a kid’s game, Sorry, but now we use more adult language to express our discontent at being sent back to start. That gives me a chuckle every time.

Today is another one of a long stretch of ideal days.

Today is summer. The sun is bright. The air is so still nothing is moving. It is already hot. The prediction is for 80˚. I’m planning on a languid day.

We had rain just about all day yesterday with thunder in the afternoon. I heard small rumbles then a few loud claps. Henry barked when the thunder was the loudest. He has now saved me from thunder and too many car doors to remember.

When I was a kid, popsicles were only a nickel, and I could buy them from the ice cream man, Johnny, who came every afternoon. Root beer and cherry were my favorites, but orange was an acceptable substitute. Hot days were unkind to popsicle lickers because the popsicles seemed to melt faster than they could be licked. The sticks would have drip marks in the color of the popsicle. My hands would get sticky. Sometimes my fingers even stuck together, but I thought it was kind of fun to stick and unstick. I haven’t had a popsicle in a long time.

I bought a few single serving Table Top pies: blueberry, apple and lemon. I had the apple last night. It was tasty and had a lot of apples. On the kitchen wall, I have a Table Top Pie tin from when they used to sell the big pies in real tins instead of the aluminum they use now. My mother used to buy Table Talk Pies, mostly apple. My father loved apple pies.

Our freezer often had a bag of Hoodsies or Hoodsie Cups if you’re using the official name. Each of them came with a wooden spoon which really looked more like a small tongue depressor. Once you peeled off the cover, the ice cream underneath was both vanilla and chocolate. One year my father gave them out at Halloween. Kids tried to come multiple times. Our yard that night was littered with covers and cups. My father never gave out Hoodsies again.

I loved Drake’s pastries. My favorite was Drake’s Devil Dogs followed closely by Funny Bones, a sort of Devil Dog but with peanut butter inside. I liked Drake’s Yankee Doodle cupcakes, a bit like a Hostess cupcake but with no frosting, because you got three in a package. My mother often packed a box of something Drake in the picnic basket for the beach. Even now, I’d never say no to a Ring Ding, a chocolate round cupcake with cream in the middle and the whole thing covered in chocolate. I know from experience one Ring Ding is never enough! It is chocolate after all, the food of the Gods.

This morning is dreary. It is also windy. I can hear the chimes in the backyard and the rustling of the leaves. It has been raining on and off since last night. Henry woke me up at around 3 to let him out, and it was raining then. He didn’t care. I went back to bed, and at some point, he joined me. We slept in until 10.

Yesterday I puttered on the deck. I cleaned the outside of the grill and covered it. My fingers are crossed. I’m hoping this cover will not disappear the way the last one did. I’m still baffled as to where that one went. I’m guessing it was a cadre of spawns working in unison. I’m thinking spawn nests around my neighborhood are cozy and waterproof. I also strung a new sets of lights along the top of the deck rail. I’m taking guesses as to how long they’ll stay lit before a spawn chews the wire. I bought a backup set. My expectations of the string’s survival are low.

When I was a kid, I had important milestones I could barely wait to reach. Each brought huge expectations. I wanted to be a teenager, to turn thirteen. I had watched all those teen movies, and I waited for all the parties and fun to begin. They didn’t. The next milestone was turning sixteen, but that birthday was a bust. I was totally disappointed. We were in Maine, and my aunt and uncle were with us. My birthday was also their anniversary. My mother bought a cake with felicitations to all of us written in the frosting. I didn’t want to share my big day. I figured I only turn 16 once, and they have an anniversary every year. I don’t even remember having a piece of cake. I was a bit petulant. I then bided my time until I was twenty-one. That was a great birthday. My friends took me out to dinner. I was given a magnum of champagne from another friend.   I could drink legally, and I could vote just in time for Nixon’s run in 1968.

All that time, I never really gave much thought to growing older. I never looked that far ahead. Now I find older is creeping closer and closer. My word retrieval skill is weakening. I lose things I put away because I can’t remember where they are. My hair is far grayer than it is brown. Laugh lines are really wrinkles. I’m slower than I’ve ever been. I tend to shuffle sometimes, but I don’t mind. They are just a part of the process of growing older.

Life right now is wonderful. I’m back to the present without worrying about the future. The familiar is filled with wonder. I love every new day.

The sun is still among the missing this morning but it did make an appearance, albeit a short appearance. Today is quite breezy, damp and a bit chilly, and it feels like it will rain.

Today is a get out of the house day. I’ve been inside too long. I haven’t even been on the deck because of the rain. I have a short list of groceries so that will be one stop. I need dog treats so that’s Agway. I also need paper goods like napkins so that will be stop three. By then I’ll want lunch so I might just throw in a stop at the Thai restaurant in Dennisport.

The only inside chore is fur watch. White dog hair is all over the place, on rugs and floors. Every couple of days I Swiffer the den, kitchen and hall. It takes two cloths, but the cleaning is futile. I am Sisyphus with my version of the rock, dog hair.

The animals are asleep. Maddie is on her blanket on the table and Henry is sprawled on the couch. He takes up nearly two cushions.

I’m watching the sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man called The War of the Colossal Beast. It is awful. I’m delighted. The Colossal Man survived his fall from the Hoover Dam and ended up in Mexico. He seems to have amnesia and remembers nothing, including how to speak. He grunts. That’s all, just grunts, no dialogue. After being drugged then captured, he is transported by the army out of Mexico to California and kept chained in a hanger. He manages to break free and disappear which then triggers, “A man hunt for the biggest man in existence.” Really, how many places can a 60 foot man hide?

The strangest thing happened as I was watching the movie. At the end, the beast killed himself by grabbing electrical wires. Right as the sparks appeared, the movie turned to color just for the last minute or two. Very odd!

The morning is cold. Only the back door is open so Henry can go out to the yard. I put on my sweatshirt. My arms were cold. The prediction is clouds all day and a thunderstorm later this afternoon. 70˚ will be the high.

When I wake up, I sometimes have to figure out the day of the week. They all seem to run together now, but when I was kid, each day had an identity. Sunday was the quiet day. It was church in the morning and a family dinner in the afternoon. Once and a while in the summer we went to the beach on a Sunday. We still had church in the morning, but on those rare beach Sundays it was hurry home, pack the car then head off to the beach. My mother made the sandwiches while we were at church. She filled the picnic basket and the tartan cooler. The basket had sandwiches, chips, cookies and fruit. Zarex was in the cooler. I remember carrying that cooler and hearing the clinks of ice cubes banging against the thermos. We stayed all day at the beach. Sometimes, on the way home, I fell asleep. Fun was exhausting.

I just cooked some quahogs so I can make baked stuffed quahogs later. My neighbor gave me a bag of them. I promised her some of the ready to bake quahogs, but I have to go to the store to get a few ingredients. Well, actually, I need most of the ingredients. I’ll make them all and probably freeze some. I remember my father quahogging. He’d bring home a basketful, and my mother would stuff them. She’d freeze a good many and later pull them out for appetizers. They were always a surprise treat.

When I was growing up, the only fish we ate came in sticks, the starter seafood for most kids. We had them on Fridays, the no meat day. I don’t remember when I had fresh fish or steamers or any fried seafood for the first time, but I do remember those fish sticks. I liked that they were finger food and crunchy. I’d dip them in tartar sauce. Usually my mother served French fries with the fish sticks. It was a favorite dinner of mine.

I don’t eat much seafood at home, but I do eat it in restaurants and take-out. I don’t eat  salmon, sardines, mackerel or canned tuna. I do eat most other fish, and I love shellfish and crustaceans like crabs, shrimp and lobster.

Steamers are one of my all time favorites. My mother used to steam them for my father and me and melt the butter then she’d leave the room. She thought eating steamers was disgusting even just to watch. This from a woman we called the seagull because of the foods she’d eat like a cold hot dog and cucumber sandwich.