Today is ugly, cloudy and cold. The high will be 50° while the low will fall to the 30’s. It is spring yet it isn’t spring. The house was chilly this morning. I grabbed my fleece. Just a few days ago my windows were open to the warm air. I could smell spring, the flowers and cut grass. Now my house is closed again, fresh air gone. Mother Nature is still toying with us.

When I was a kid, Sunday was a quiet day. Churches were filled. Most stores were closed. Families had a Sunday dinner, always the special meal of the week. The whole family was there. It was a command performance. In the afternoons, lots of families visited relatives. My mother’s side of the family was huge. She had four brothers and three sisters. Only the younger two weren’t married. I was the oldest grandchild.

My grandparents lived in East Boston. I loved visiting the city. There was a corner store right up the street. I’d take my dime, the one my grandfather would give me, and walk up to the store to buy candy. In the summer, people sold Italian ice, slush, out their windows, the windows facing the street. I loved the lemon. We’d play stick ball on the street with a stick, of course, and a half pink rubber ball. The bases were cars, sewer covers and random spots in the sidewalk gutters. We’d play a sort of baseball game against the steps with an uncut pink rubber ball. You’d throw the ball at the steps, and it would sail into the air. Hits were determined by distance. Home runs were always over the heads of the outfielders. You had to keep track of the hits, the imaginary runners on bases and the outs. Arguments were common. East Boston was the first place I ate bakery pizza. The pieces were square and room temperature. Once we walked all the way to Logan Airport and wandered around. The terminals were interconnected flat buildings. You could go up on the roofs and watch the planes coming and going. My mother was angry. I was thrilled.

Sunday night came quickly. My mother would send us to bed early always reminding us Monday was a school day.

The morning is cloudy and damp. Light rain is predicted for most of the day though the sun seems to belie that. It broke through a short while ago. It is 53°. Yesterday I got registered for the dump. Give me an amen!! I went there and emptied my car of boxes and papers. Today I’ll load the car with trash bags and make another dump run. It will take more than a few trips to get rid of all the bags especially the really heavy bags I can’t lift. Those I’ll drag, a technique I’ve used often.

When I was a kid, I never cooked or baked. My mother did it all. I made sandwiches, my culinary delights. My favorite sandwiches were bologna sandwiches. My mother bought bologna in a roll which had to be cut into slices. My knife skills weren’t so great so my slices were odd, thin at one end and thick at the other. Luckily, the white bread was so pliable it molded itself around each end. I added mustard, plain old yellow mustard. My second favorite sandwich was a flutternutter. I made it with smooth peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff. The brand of peanut butter didn’t matter. The Marshmallow Fluff did. It could only be fluff, never Marshmallow Cream. The difficult part of eating that sandwich was it oozed out of the sides. I never did find the perfect proportions.

My grandfather always ate his toast burned on purpose. I later found out the reason. My grandfather’s family had little money. His father had been murdered. His mother had to work. He and his sisters used to walk the train tracks to collect coal pieces which had fallen off the train. One of his sisters took care of them while his mother worked. There were no pop up toasters. On the toasters back then, the bread was loaded on two sides of the toaster where the coils were. Once one side was browned, you had to turn the bread to toast the other side. If you didn’t watch it for even the shortest time, the bread burned on one side. For my grandfather it was his usual breakfast, burned toast. It became comfort food.

Every morning in Ghana, I had the same breakfast, two eggs, coffee and toast. The food was cooked on a charcoal burner. My stove had no gas. The burner resembled a hibachi. A lot of fan action was necessary to get the coal burning exactly right. The eggs were cooked in peanut oil. They were delicious. The bread was toasted by putting it on the sides of the burner. You had to remember to turn the bread or it burned. My grandfather would have been delighted.

Spring has taken hold. It is already 61°. Outside my window, I can see the blue sky, the clouds and that beautiful sun. The air is still. I can hear the birds and their songs. My house is quiet. The dogs are napping. Nala is on the couch, and Henry is on my bed. I found a couple of branches in the living room. Last night Nala was on the couch chewing on a big pine cone. She was not pleased when I took it away, but she’ll forget soon enough.

The spring weather has changed my mood. I’ve stopped dragging my feet. I’m off the couch. I am getting chores done, stuff I’ve ignored for a while. Yesterday I picked up my laundry. Today I’ll put it away. I’m going to get my dump permit. There are bags of trash sitting on the deck and in the front. My car is filled with boxes and bags of newspapers. I’ll get rid of them today and starting tomorrow I’ll do a daily dump run. I’m also going to get those pansies.

Where I lived when I was a growing up was in what we called the project. It had duplexes on the hill and around the small rotary. Every house had kids, some older than I was but more younger. We used to roller skate on the sidewalks and on the always empty parking area at the top of the hill. We rode bikes down the hill. It was where I perfected biking with no hands. In winter, the hill was perfect for sledding. The swamp in the woods was where we often ice skated. I remember there were small channels of water leading to the big part of the swamp. When the water froze, we could follow the channels through the woods. What I remember is how clear the water was. I could see grass and small plants under the ice. The field below the houses was for summer, for grasshopper and firefly hunting, catch and release. The swamp was on the other side of it. Blueberry bushes were along one side the field. We’d pick them, not to save but to eat. I always thought the swamp, the field and the trees were magical.

Already I have had my uke practice, my lesson and one concert this week. The music book for the month is The Beatles. The concerts are fun to play.

I want to jump for joy. It is 64°. It is a lovely spring day, the sort we’ve all been craving. The sky is so blue it almost defies description. The air is still. I was on the deck for a while watching the dogs romp through the backyard. That was when I noticed Nala’s latest trash run. She took a bag of Coke cans from under the deck. The cans are all over the yard. I’m going to have to trash pick. I also noticed another bag’s been emptied. That one had common trash. Gee, I wonder who opened that bag.

I think spring is my favorite season. When I was a kid, I loved the morning air. It still held a hint of the chill of late winter, but the day warmed quickly. The air smelled sweet. I watched the progress of the buds on the trees over the sidewalk on my walk to school. I loved the colors of spring, the bright flowers in the front gardens, the dafs and the hyacinths. I could see the yellow buds of the forsythia trees. I was wearing spring, a jacket with no layers. Spring is hopeful.

My bike came out of the cellar, a spring ritual. I rode it in the afternoons. I sometimes went to the white store for my mother, usually for bread. I rode by the golf courses and the stores uptown. I went to the library. Spring gave me a sense of freedom after a cold, snowy winter. We stayed out longer in the afternoons. The street lights came on later. The sun was taking over.

Ghana didn’t have spring, but it had the rainy season. The first rains made rivulets on the packed, dry soil, but soon enough the soil softened. The fields were sown and small green shoots appeared. I was as taken with the rain as I was of spring. It rained almost every day. I didn’t have a raincoat or an umbrella. I got wet. I didn’t mind. Soon enough all the fields were alive. The crops were so tall you couldn’t see between them.. All you could see was the road bordered by the tall millet grasses.

The school garden was tended by Enzo. The garden was beautiful, lush and green. He used to come and chat with me. He spoke pidgin English, but I pretty much understood him. One time he complained, “Am I a garden boy or a gate boy?” That was when the back gate right by my house was locked. I just listened. I gave him seeds. He grew vegetables. I remember when he grew green peppers. They were not popular. They were not hot. My friends and I bought them all.

Every morning when I go get the paper in the front yard I stop to look at the flowers. They are their most beautiful now, tall and colorful. They make me feel a bit giddy.

Today is cloudy. It will be in the low 50’s. I’ll take it despite the wind. I didn’t list any chores or errands for today. As always, there are things I could do and places I could go, but I’ll just wing it.

When I woke up, I didn’t open my eyes right away. I could feel breathing on my face and a paw was pushing at me. I begrudgingly opened my eyes, Nala’s eyes were just inches away from mine. When she realized I was awake, she began jumping on the bed. Henry just stood and watched. I got up.

I try to carry boxes and bags, like I once did. I even used to carry a fifty pound bag of litter from the car to the house. Now I struggle with packages. I can’t seem to convince my head that my body is old, okay, older, a better word, so I keep trying. When I take a filled litter box down the stairs, I go a stair at a time. I stand backwards to the box and hope for the best. I brought a heavy box down today. The box and I made it safely. I added the box to the growing pile of boxes on the deck. They are my targets for later in the week. I just need to get my dump pass.

My father always brought the trash barrels to the sidewalk on trash day. He’d bring in the empty barrels when he got home. When we moved to the cape, my father had to go to the dump with his trash. He never minded. He loved the dump. He loved the high piles of trash and the raucous seagulls circling the piles. He’d go on Sunday. He always invited me. Sometimes I went. When I was in college and a friend came home with me for the weekend, my friend was invited to go with my father. It was almost a command performance.

I’m in the mood for chocolate, maybe I’ll make some brownies.

The morning is the same as the last few mornings, but we are slowly inching to warmer weather. The high today will be 49°. Tonight will be in the low 40’s, finally out of the 30’s at least for one night. The dogs are my barometers. They have been staying outside longer since the days got warmer.

Sunday has always been the quiet day. When I was a kid, we went to church. We always wore our church clothes which meant I wore a dress or a skirt and blouse, never pants. I wore good shoes. I even wore a hat. My father was an usher at an early mass. He always brought home the paper and some donuts. His donuts choices left something to be desired. He bought plain, jelly and lemon. His favorite was a plain donut slathered with butter. We hung around the house until after Sunday dinner. I’d read the Sunday comics. The news didn’t interest me. We’d watch a movie.

Sunday dinner was special. We had a roast, sometimes chicken and sometimes beef. My mother used to put onion slices on the top of the beef. They got crispy and were delicious. I always tried to steal one. Sometimes I did before my mother could catch me. The chicken was usually stuffed. I loved my mother’s stuffing. It was sage. Mashed potatoes and gravy were a given. The vegetables varied. They were all canned back then. I still laugh at my father and his asparagus. My mother bought a small can and served them on a plate just for my father. None of us ate it. He’d pick one spear up with his fork and the asparagus was always limp.

I’ve mentioned before how on Sunday afternoons we often went to my grandparents’ house in East Boston. The kitchen is where my mother, my grandmother and my aunts sat around the table all afternoon. My grandmother always made pasta. It stayed on the stove and was help yourself. The grater and the Parmesan cheese were on the table. That was the first time I grated cheese. My mother used to buy the already grated Parmesan cheese in the jar.

On the way home in the late afternoon, I sometimes fell asleep. The trip wasn’t long, but the car on the road lulled me to sleep. At home, we had a few hours before my mother announced, “Time for bed, school tomorrow.”

What a pretty morning! A slight breeze sways the pine branches. Not a cloud is in the sky, the spectacularly blue sky. Today will be in the low 50’s. Tonight will be in the 30’s. I have a couple of errands which will get me out to enjoy the day. I’m finally going to get those pansies.

When I was a kid, my mother made dinners she knew we’d all eat. We never saw broccoli or cauliflower. Spinach was Popeye’s choice, not ours. The only salads she made were potato, tuna and chicken, never green salad. I didn’t eat beans, but I loved peas. We knew we’d have potatoes at dinner. Mostly they were mashed, but sometimes they were oven fried. Corn was a frequent all season veggie, canned in winter, fresh in summer. My father was the champion at eating corn off the cob. His approach reminded me of typewriter keys moving side to side and up and down. He went so fast that if you sat beside him you got sprayed with flying pieces of corn. For dessert we’d grab some cookies, Oreos, if it was close to when my mother grocery shopped as they disappeared quickly. Chocolate chip was a close second. My mother would sometimes surprise us with brownies. She’d make them then frost them with chocolate frosting and jimmies (sprinkles to some of you). I remember the pan she always used. I can still see it in my mind’s eye.

I remember when my mother visited we often went shopping. We’d stop at a few antique stores. In one there were individual tables and bookcases. I watched a woman adding to her wares. She put down four nested tulip bowls, Fire King bowls. My mother had had a set when I was growing up so I decided to buy the bowls. I still use them, and every time I do, I am reminded of my mother. What a treasure!

When both of my parents came down, my mother and I shopped while my father worked around my front yard. He weeded and mowed. He loved yard work. When I visited them, he’d show me his front lawn. It was his pride and joy.

Henry started barking by the front door. It was his intruder bark. I checked but didn’t see anything or anyone then I heard the mail truck. Henry is not a fan of that truck, and the mailman is not a Henry fan. If he has a package for my house, he leaves it at the end of the walk. Henry keeps barking. That’s all he does as he hasn’t yet learned to open the door. I hope he never does.

What a pretty day! The sun is squint your eyes bright. The blue sky goes on forever. Nothing is moving. It is 49°. The high today will be 53°, spring on Cape Cod. Tonight will drop back to the 30’s, back to winter.

I have two errands left. I also have house chores. I am inundated by spiders. This morning I walked around clearing webs. The fur balls are back. I need to clear yet again. That seems to occur every couple of days. I’ve been using the broom. The balls fly in the air when I sweep. I have a vacuum, but I do like a broom.

When I was a kid, the creatures around me were the usual, the spawns of Satan, an occasional skunk, garter snakes and birds. I don’t remember which birds. I never paid that much attention. I do remember watching a praying mantis, the strangest looking insect I ever saw. It looked like the miniature version of a monster from a Japanese science fiction movie, a little Rodan.

I had chickens in Ghana. My first hen was a gift from a friend. She came with a few eggs on which she’d been sitting. Her roost was the bottom half of a pottery bowl. It was kept in the toilet area of my backyard to keep her and her eggs safe; however, it didn’t keep me safe. (Bathroom talk here) the toilet room was small. I could touch both walls when I sat on the proverbial throne. The hen was right near my feet. If I moved my feet, she’d peck them. I always wore sandals so the pecking hurt. I learned to keep my feet at a distance, difficult in the small space. But there was something neat about this set up. I could watch the progress of the eggs. Sitting there, got to see the first cracks. I could hear the chick pecking away. This hen was free range. Every morning she’d leave the yard followed by her chicks. In the late afternoon she’d return, minus at least one chick then finally all the chicks were gone, taken by some predator. My students later told me she left eggs around the compound instead of in the nesting area. This hen later had a new purpose. She was dinner. I did get more hens and my flock grew. I became a chicken docent. I also became a plucker of great renown.

The nights are quite chilly, in the 30’s. The days are in the 40’s, but spring is in the air, well, maybe pre-spring, a dress rehearsal, is here, the perfect definition of our weather. In my front garden, the dafs and hyacinths have bloomed, the first colors of the season. I am still waiting for the backyard daf. It is in the middle of the yard and is the only one. I think some creature carried the bulb. I love that spot of yellow.

I have a few errands on my dance card today. My favorite errand is to go to the nursery to buy pansies for the pots on my front steps. I remember pansies in the front garden of the house when I was a kid. They all had faces. They were mostly smiling. I loved the purple and the bright orange. Those are the colors I’ll look for today.

I heard whining around 5:30 this morning. I opened my eyes and saw only Nala on my bed. Henry was the whiner. Nala and I went downstairs while I checked. He wanted out. I forgave him for waking me up when I opened the back door. I could hear birds greeting the day. I heard mourning doves. I even heard the gobbles of turkeys. The air was cold but it was morning cold which gives hope for a warmer day. Henry was quick, and we all went back to bed. I woke up again not long after. It was Nala. She was beside me whining and staring at my face. I made the mistake of opening my eyes. She starting lapping my face. Then the two of them, Henry and Nala, started jumping on the bed and on me. I got up. They waited on the stairs to make sure I was coming. I love that they wait for me. We all went down the stairs. They went out. I made coffee. It was the start of another day in the Ryan household.

When I was a kid, I could hardly wait to put winter away, to put hats and mittens and heavy coats in the closet. If it was a bit chilly outside, I never would have admitted it. I did not want to go back to winter. The field at the foot of my street was a quicker way to school than walking on the sidewalks. The only problem was the wind whipped across the field. It ballooned my coat, and sometimes I had to walk backwards. I laughed at the coat.

I am quite tired of this weather. It is chilly at 44°. The sun is just ornamental, but the deep blue sky is breathtaking. The pine branches are swaying with the breeze. I have a few chores, the same chores I’ve had on my list for a while. I just need a burst of energy.

My street is small, nine houses. One is a summer rental and another is a second house, an empty house right now. The family comes down in the summer. They have a boat. Two houses still have school age kids. Mostly retired people live in the other houses. Two of the houses still have original owners. Mine is one of them. It is quite the quiet street. Houses go dark early. The street has no streetlights. My lights are on far later than at any other house. I own the world after midnight.

When I was a kid, the street lights were an alarm. As soon as they came on, you could hear some mothers yelling out the doors at their kids to come home. It was a nighttime ritual for every kid on the street.When I went into the house, my mother was always preparing supper. I’d plunk down in front of the TV, close enough to go blind and stay there until supper was ready. We’d eat supper and then watch more TV until bedtime. I’d read in bed until I got caught and was forced to turn off the light.

My bicycle came out of hibernation sometime in April. It was chilly riding it downhill. The wind whipped at my face. I’d sometimes wear a sweater under my spring jacket. I’d ride with no destination in mind. Some routes were close. Other routes were far away. I seldom saw any other bicyclists.

In those days there was still a town barn with a few horses. It was on a street behind the town hall. I’d stop and watch the horses for a while. They didn’t do much. Mostly they just chewed hay. There was a dairy farm. It was at the edge of town. It was one of my favorite stops. There was a zoo. It is still there. At the golf courses I’d stop and check for errant balls. Sometimes they were across the street on a lawn. Other times they were in gutters along the road. I thought the balls were a bounty. I never gave thought to the golfers whose golf balls went so far astray.

On Saturdays I’d ride around most of the day checking out all my favorite spots, maybe even seeing the train. To the young me, my town was a treasure. I loved exploring it. I always thought it was almost bigger than life.