The day is cloudy and rain is predicted, but it is warm at 65°. I went to the deck to clean the mess caused by a spawn. The thistle feeder had a hole, and all of the seed was on the deck. One of the clay pots was in pieces and shards. Its soil was in a mound also on the deck. My prayer flags had fallen and were hanging, no longer attached to the deck rail. I cursed all spawns while I cleaned.

The morning has been leisurely. My sloth is in full rein. I took my time reading the paper and doing all the puzzles. The aroma of coffee has filled the house, and I’ve already had a couple of cups. The dogs are sleeping beside me on the couch, one on each side of me. It is that sort of day.

The dogs have become whiners. Henry stands outside the back door, bangs the dog window and whines. Nala looks at me and whines. Her stub tail wags her whole back end. They are guilting me.

The classrooms in my grammar school had banks of floor to ceiling windows. The lights hung down from the ceiling. On days like today, the room was shadowed. Noise seemed dampened by the darkness. Only the rustling of paper, the shuffling of feet and the creaking from our chairs as we shifted could be heard. Even the nun seemed a bit listless. She had us silently read from our literature books and then answer the questions at the end of each story. I could have done that all day.

In grammar school, My classes had at least forty kids in each room. We defined baby boomers. Each grade had two classes, one with nuns and one with a regular teacher. All the teachers were women. I had nuns in grades one, three, five and eight. My sixth grade teacher was Miss Quilter. She had thick glasses and wore her hair in a bun. She wore mostly suits. She was the stereotypical spinster teacher. She was the best teacher I ever had. I flourished in her class. She challenged me. She awakened in me a love for learning I still have. She has my thanks for ever.

The last couple of days have been busy. My friend Holly picked me up on Tuesday for uke practice, and we stopped at a store for bread and cream and a couple of snickers. Yesterday morning another uke friend picked me up for my lesson and even stopped at the dump so I could dump my trash. I went to the concert yesterday, again thanks to a uke friend. I’d have been homebound without them.

No car yet, still waiting for my check.

The morning is again lovely. It is warm at 67°. The oak leaves are spinning and twisting in the breeze. The sunlight brightens even the darkness corners of the backyard. The sky has a few light clouds but is mostly blue. I love spring.When I was a kid, my neighborhood was filled with kids. Every house had kids. Most houses had many kids. It was only quiet in the evenings.

When we lived at the top of the hill, I played in the field and at the swamp, the four season swamp. We picked blueberries along the side of the hill to the water tower. Woods were on both sides of the field. We buried our turtle in a metal box in the lower woods. The turtle had been a painted Woolworth’s turtle. His house was oval and made of see through plastic. A small island in the middle had a palm tree. The house sat on the counter for years. Over time the turtle lost his paint. We used to swat flies to feed the turtle. We made sure the flies had a bit of life left as the turtle love catching them. That turtle lived into double digits. He got a little bit bigger but never outgrew his home. One day he just died. I think it was old age.

When I was in high school, my friends and I walked all over town. We were in that awkward age between bicycles and drivers’ licenses. We walked to drill and home again. Sometimes we stopped at O’Grady’s Diner for a brownie with fudge sauce. I walked in the early morning, before seven, to catch the bus to school. It was usually late afternoon before I walked home again. I never really minded walking, even at night.

I remember the circles of light below the street lights. I remember being able to see living rooms lit and TV’s flickering through the windows of the houses on the sidewalks. I could hear my footsteps. Few cars went by. The nights were quiet back then.

I live now in a quiet neighborhood. The house next to me is a summer rental, empty all winter. I am retired as are many of my neighbors. We greet each other with a wave. After the car crash, my neighbors stepped in to help. They were wonderful.

With no car, I have been house-bound. I have missed uke concerts which I thoroughly enjoy. Yesterday, I ended up cleaning just to keep busy. Oh, the horror! I have no cream for my coffee, no bread and no cheese. The larder is nearly empty, not a Snickers in sight.

The morning is lovely, already 62°. The birds are at the feeders which were filled yesterday. The dogs scared away the spawn, and I moved its favorite feeder hoping to thwart its thievery. Every time I see that bushy spawn tail, I see red, okay grey but you know what I mean. I’m tired of being a spawn lunch counter.

When I was little, the nuns scared me even though I had an aunt who was a nun. We saw her only once a year, an obligatory visit, so we didn’t know her well. On every visit, we’d sit in the living room of the convent. I remember a nun would bring cookies and milk for us and ginger ale for my parents. It was always the stiffest visit. Her habit was off-putting. We’d sit quietly on the living room chairs. She’d asked about school, and that was the extent of our conversation. Every though it was only once a year, we dreaded the visit.

I can close my eyes and still see the living room in the duplex where we lived for so long. The house, the duplex, was on a hill on a hill. The picture window was centered. It looked out on our front yard, a grassy hill. From that window, you could also see three roads, the houses across the street, a mail box and a street light. My father always parked his car by the steps which led to the house. In the living room the couch faced the picture window. A desk was by the front door. We sat on it for professional pictures one year. My father’s chair was also by the window. The TV was in a corner, the same corner where the Christmas tree always stood. The room was small, but I never really noticed. It had everything we needed and more.

In my kitchen, I have an old school chair and desk. My microwave is on the desk and on top of it are some cookbooks, all with African recipes. Included is Ghana Chop, a cookbook from my Peace Corps days. Measurements are in cigarette tins, like two tins of sugar. I don’t have any tins so I guess. When I was in first grade, my desk and chair were exactly the same as the one in the kitchen. The space for my school books is underneath. I used to have pull out a couple of books to find the right one. I keep my kitchen towels there. I pull them out to find the right one.

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

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.

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. 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 jigsaw 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 though the binding broke. 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.

Last night it rained, just as predicted, and the rain has left the morning cloudy, chilly and damp. It will be in the 50’s. I have no to-do list. I could have a list but I don’t choose to make one. The sloth is strong in this one!

The morning is a bit noisy. The birds are vocalizing their complaints. Feeders need to be filled. I watched the male goldfinches strutting their stuff. They are the brightest yellow. Yesterday I heard gobbles but didn’t see the turkeys. I figured they were down by the tiny pond at the end of my street. They roost on the branches there at night. A while later Henry was barking. I checked. The turkeys were across the street still gobbling.

I never saw much wildlife when I was a kid. I saw and heard birds, watched squirrels scurrying across the lawns to climb the trees and once in a while saw a skunk. I love the way skunks sort of waddle when they walk. Once, on a family Sunday ride, we saw deer munching grass in a field. We all screamed for my dad to stop. He did, and we watched a while. We thought it amazing. We had never seen deer outside the zoo before.

In Ghana, during my live-in, when I stayed with a Ghanaian family, I used to visit the wives who lived in a different compound than their husband did. The babies and the toddlers lived there too. I remember vultures were walking around inside the compound. Nobody seemed to mind. I thought it amazing, actual vultures. In the bush one time, I saw baboons. I kept my distance. I watched a snake eat a chicken whole. There was a chicken bump. I stayed far away from snakes, poisonous snakes.

In Mole National Park which I visited on one trip back to Ghana, I saw bush elephants walking by my deck steps on their way to the watering home. I saw gnus, all sorts of monkeys, a variety of deer including antelope, most of which were dining in fields. The ugliest animals were the warthogs.

Here on the cape, there are all sorts of wildlife. Coyotes are common. One used to cross my yard before I put up the fence. Nala will tell you Possums are plentiful. She has caught her share of them. I’ve seen foxes and their kits. I nearly hit a deer which jumped in front of my car. It stared at me and had the proverbial deer in the headlights look. It took me a while to breathe normally. Turkeys are everywhere. Given Nala’s penchant for hunting, I’ve added her to my list of wild animals

The morning is beautiful but a bit chilly, in the 50’s. The sun is squint your eyes bright. The clear blue sky is unmarred by a single cloud. It stretches across from east to west. The weather report, though, belies this lovely morning. Rain is predicted.

Having no car means I am housebound. In some ways I don’t mind. I like being home. I like having no expectations on my time and energy. I love my cozy clothes; however, there is one glaring loss, I am missing my ukulele events. I have already missed two concerts and will miss more next week. I do love playing my ukulele.

When I was a kid getting punished, I had to listen to my angry parents. They had stock phrases to meet any situation. I used to get myself in even more trouble as I had an answer for every one of them. “How many times do I have to tell you?” was too big a temptation. I always gave them a number. My father would get even more red faced when I did and the vein on his neck got more prominent. That was his tell by which we could measure how mad he was. My mother always threatened to tell my father. We ignored her threats so my mother escalated the confrontations and started throwing things. Once she even threw my dictionary, my red American Heritage Dictionary, across the room. The binding broke. “What do you think you’re doing?” was a trick question. When I’d question their authority, the answer was always, “Because I said so.” That was never enough for me, but that was all I got.

My mother used to tell me I had a wise mouth. She didn’t mean it as a compliment. I knew that she meant smart-alecky, fresh. She was right. Flippant answers just jumped out before I could stop them. I didn’t have a filter. I was a kid with a smart mouth.

The morning is already warm at 68°. It might even get as high as 70°. Earlier, the sky was cloudy, but now the sun has chased the clouds away. The sky is a pretty deep blue. I’m thinking the warmer days are finally here, and it’s time to switch seasons, time to change my clothes from winter to spring.

 The rental car went back yesterday. My life has come to a standstill. I guess it’s time to make a to-do list, a keep me busy while I’m homebound list. Upstairs is my target. The dust is thick and heavy. My bedroom would please Mrs. Haversham. 

During Peace Corps training, I was in Bawku, Ghana in July 1969. I remember sitting around the radio listening to VOA. It was broadcasting the moon landing. The newsman described in detail what was happening, what most of the world was watching. I remember listening to a play by play as Armstrong sort of jumped from rung to rung down the ship’s ladder. I remember the excitement when he became the first human to step on the moon. We all cheered. VOA had taken us to the moon. 

Some things give me pause. Ketchup on eggs is one of them. Ketchup on hot dogs is another. Refried beans even look disgusting. Baked beans look better but still look unappetizing to me. I’m not a fan of eating rare or medium rare steaks or burgers. I think my mother never served beef even a little red in the middle. I love seafood but am not a fan of oysters. I like my seafood cooked. I like okra but not when is is slimy. I always think it needs a Kleenex. Crooked pictures need to be straightened. My psyche demands it. 

I don’t mind bugs. They don’t scare me. I do tend to disrupt web building but not from a dislike of spiders but rather for a dislike of webs which question, by their very existence, my housekeeping skills. The biggest insect I’ve ever seen was a centipede crawling down a tree behind my house in Ghana. The cockroaches there were so big you could saddle and ride them. Okay, I admit I am exaggerating, but they were huge. They were in the kitchen where we used to hunt them wielding brooms as our weapons. I remember the sounds of them scurrying. 

I have a few outside chores. I’m glad for those. I think today is a wonderful day to sit on the deck and read, as a sort of dress rehearsal for summer. 

Sorry! It has been a couple of days. Yesterday it was Henry. I woke to hear him making the most ungodly cries, as if he were getting beaten. I was terrified for him. I quickly got dressed and took him to the emergency vet’s office. He was checked, but the vet found nothing wrong though I knew it was something as Henry just wasn’t Henry. He wouldn’t let me near him. He’d run if I got close. I had to herd him to get him inside the house. Next, it was Nala’s turn. When I got Henry home, he and Nala got into a fight. Nala started it after she smelled Henry. I figured he might have had an I was at the vet’s smell. Nala, though, got the worst of it, two deep teeth marks on her leg. She couldn’t walk on it. I put antiseptic on the wounds and covered them with gauze. I lifted her up and down the stairs when she wanted out. Both dogs took medication. 

Today is better. Henry is his happy self. Nala limps but is walking on that foot. When I changed the gauze, the wounds looked better, and she goes up and down the stairs alone. As for me, I barely slept last night as I woke up to every sound or movement from both dogs. Today I napped. Like the dogs, I am feeling better. 

Last night it rained. I was still awake to hear the first drops on the roof. I don’t know how long it rained but everything was wet this morning. Today is cloudy but warm in the 6o’s.

When I was a kid, our dog Duke, a boxer, was fierce. He protected us and the house. Once, he got into one fight with the dog from down the street, equally as fierce. The dog grabbed onto Duke’s neck before the fight was broken up, and Duke ended up with a horrible wound. My mother wanted to take him to the vet’s, but my father said Duke could take care of it himself. My father worked away all week. As soon as he was gone, my mother took Duke to the vet’s office. The vet treated the neck wound and put Duke on antibiotics. By Friday when my dad got home the wound looked much better. My father checked Duke and told my mother, “See, I told you he could take care of it himself.” My poor father lived much of his life in the dark!